LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Incarnate Word ! 



Being the Fourth Gospel Elucidated 
by Interpolation for Popular Use 



BY 



WILLIAM HUGH GILL, D. D. 

Author of " The Temple Opened" " Esther" etc. 



PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO 
103-105 South Fifteenth Street 



1° \<\ 00^ 



Library of Congress: 

Two Cop^s Renrw^o ! 
FEB 16 1901 

J fan . 2 /, / y o o 
SECOND COPY 



Copyright, 1900, by 
George W. Jacobs & Co 



CONTENTS 



A Word with the Reader ...... 5 

Prologue ........ 7 

Ipart fftret 

John's Early Witness to Jesus 14 

Early Disciples . ... . . . . 21 

Jesus' First Miracle ....... 27 

Cleansing the Temple . . . . . . 31 

Jesus' Knowledge of Men ..... 34 

Jesus and Nicodemus . . . . . 35 

Last Witness of John to Jesus . . . . .42 

The Woman of Samaria . ... . . 46 

The Spiritual Harvest . . . . . -57 

The Nobleman's Son Healed . . . . 60 

The Miracle of Bethesda ... . . . .64 

Jesus Charged with Sabbath Breaking ... 66 
Jesus Justifies His Sabbath Work .... 69 

Feeding the Five Thousand ..... 74 

Jesus Walking on the Sea ..... 78 

The Synagogue Sermon ..... So 

Proving the Twelve . . . . . -93 

At the Feast of Tabernacles ..... 95 

The Woman Taken in Adultery . . . .111 

Treasury Teaching . . . . . . 117 

The Man Born Blind Healed . . . . 133 

The Messianic Flock ...... 147 

At the Feast of Dedication . . . . 153 

3 



Contents 



The Resurrection of Lazarus . . . . 161 

Caiaphas' Prophecy . . . . . . .174 

The Anointing at Bethany . . . . 177 

Priests Plot to Kill Lazarus . . . . .180 

Palm Sunday . . . . . . . 180 

The Request of the Greeks . . . . 182 

Religious Insensibility ...... 187 

Last Public Witness of Jesus to Himself . . . 188 

part Second 

Jesus and His Own . . . . . 190 
The Lord's Prayer . . . . . . .214 

part GbfrD— Gbe passion 

The Betrayal and Arrest . . . . . 218 

Peter's Denials ...... 222, 225 

Jesus Before the High Priest .... 223 

Jesus Before Pilate ....... 226 

Jesus Delivered to be Crucified .... 239 

The Crucifixion ....... 243 

The Entombment of Jesus ..... 249 

part ffourtb 

Resurrection and Subsequent Appearances of Jesus . 252 

Conclusion . . . . . . . . 263 

^Epilogue 

Jesus' Appearance to the Seven .... 264 

Peter's Rehabilitation 269 

Peter's Martyrdom Foretold 271 

Religious Busybodies . . . . . ' 271 

Attest and Final Statement 272 



A WORD WITH THE READER 



About a year ago, as a test of the acceptability 
of the method of exposition herein adopted, the 
author published the Book of Esther, and so warmly 
was that work commended by both press and peo- 
ple that he feels warranted in issuing this more im- 
portant volume on the same plan. 

This volume is not a paraphrase of the Fourth 
Gospel; for the English text, according to the Re- 
vised Version, is preserved intact, and, word for 
word, is printed in italics, while the interpolated 
matter appears in common Roman type, so that the 
two are readily distinguishable the one from the 
other. At the same time, the expository matter is 
so inserted in the text as to make it read as though 
part and parcel of the original composition \ while 
the latter may be read quite independently of the 
former. 

Thus, it is thought that, without its objectionable 
features, this volume will answer the ends of the 
ordinary commentary. Ellipses are supplied, gaps 
filled up, and the text given its true local coloring 
and historical setting, so that the reader can go 
right on, taking in the idea as he goes, without 
turning either to the right or to the left, 

5 



6 A Word With the Reader 



The title of the work is taken from the Prologue 
of the Gospel, and is the true index to the nature 
of its contents. 

The Revised Version is used because it is based 
on the purest Text and is the most faithful transla- 
tion. The Old Version, indeed, requiring so much 
verbal explanation, is not readily susceptible to this 
sort of treatment. 

In the printing, the unsightly congestion, which 
makes the page of the New Version so repellent to 
the reader, has been avoided, as also the very 
faulty versiculation of the Old. The effort has 
been to so spread the matter out upon the page, 
using such devices as the printer's art affords, that 
its momentous truths may readily catch the eye and 
impress themselves on the understanding and the 
heart. 

In a word, the aim has been to make for the 
young generation especially a thoroughly " up-to- 
date" book, and so to render the reading of "the 
Golden Gospel" as intelligible as pleasurable and 
profitable. 

It is the purpose of the author to publish the 
synoptic Gospels and other Books of Scripture in 
style and size uniform with this volume. 

W. H. G, 

Philadelphia, 1 90 1. 



PROLOGUE 



In the beginning, before all worlds, O ye philos- 
ophers, who are hopelessly searching for the link 
of connection between the finite 

The Pre-eocistent j ,1 • n ■•. 1 . 

and the infinite, between matter 

Christ, _ . . , „ 1 - . 

and spirit, between God and the 
world, in the region of the idea, was, in the region 
of reality, that Revealer of God ye are vainly striv- 
ing to find in your metaphysical speculations, even 
the pre-existent Christ, who, in the terms of your 
philosophy, shall here be called the Word ; and by 
reason of His exalted dignity the I Ford was in 
closest fellowship with God ; and because of His 
filial relationship to Him the Word was God, that 
is to say, Divine. 

The Same zuas in the beginning in active cooper- 
ation with God. The world was made by Him, 
that is, through His instrumentality, and without 
Him was not anything made that hath been made. 

And not only was He instrumental in the pro- 
duction of the material universe, but all sentient 
and rational creatures were indebted to Him for their 

7 



8 



The Incarnate Word 



peculiar existence ; for in Him, as its native foun- 
tain, was life, and, assuming in them the form of 
reason and conscience, constituting them thereby 
rational and moral beings, the life was the light of 
men. 

And, in this impersonal way, all down the ages 
ever since the Fall, the light shineth in the mental 
and moral darkness occasioned by that sad event, 
and the darkness, by reason of its innate aversion 
to the light, apprehended it not. 

Now it came to pass that, in accordance with the 
terms of ancient prophecy, there came a man, sent 
from God, whose name was 

The Forerunner, T , , , r . . , 

John, and who, from the rite he 
administered to his disciples, was surnamed the 
Baptizer. 

The same came for witness, that, in his official 
capacity, he might bear witness of the Light, now 
no longer impersonal in men, but incarnated in 
the person of Jesus the Nazarene, identifying Him 
as the Christ, that all might believe through him 
that Jesus was indeed He. 

He was not himself the Light, though by reason 
of his extraordinary character many for a season 
thought he was, but came that he might bear witness 
of Him who was the Light ; for while he was yet 



Prologue 



9 



exercising his ministry there was the trne> even 
the original Light, which lighteth every man, irre- 
spective of race or nationality, coning into the 
world to enter on the duties of His office as the 
Messiah, the Christ of God. 

He, this Light, the Word Incarnate, was in the 
world as one of its inhabitants, and, as has been 
said, the world was made by, that 
The Mistot tc j s throusrli Him, and yet the world 

Christ. ; . J 

of mankind, by reason ot its spirit- 
ual blindness, failing to penetrate the disguise in 
which He appeared, and to recognize in the humble 
Nazarene the Christ of God, knew Him not ! 

Nor was it the world of mankind in general that 
failed to recognize in Jesus the Christ \ but, what 
rendered such failure all the more culpable and 
inexcusable was, that He came unto His own 
peculiar inheritance, the land of Israel, and they 
that zv ere His own servants, the dwellers therein, 
the Jews, the pupil people, whom God had 
educated and prepared for His advent, received 
Him not ; but, tragedy of all the ages, cast Him 
out, and slew Him ! 

But though the Jewish nation, as a body, 
through its official representatives, thus rejected 
the Christ of God, individuals not a few, recog- 



io The Incarnate Word 



nizing in Jesus the long looked for Messiah, re- 
ceived Him as such ; and as many as so received 
Him, to them, whether Jews or Gentiles, gave He 
the right to become the children of God, members 
of the new theocracy, the spiritual Israel, even to 
them that then, or at any subsequent time, should 
believe on His name : which were born, not as in 
ordinary physical generation, of blood ; nor by the 
natural instinct in obedience to which beings are re- 
produced, that is, of the will of the flesh; nor 
by the purpose or determination are not the part of 
the subject himself, that is, of the will of man ; but 
through the agency of the Holy Spirit, whereby 
they become partakers of the divine nature, super- 
naturally, of God ! 

And so it came to pass that, in the fulness of 
time, emptying Himself, foregoing all the preroga- 
tives and glory of His pre-existent 
witness to the gtate ^ ^j lg Word became flesh, 

Incarnate One. . 

placing Himself m the common 
category of the sons of men, sharing the lot 
and performing all the ordinary functions of hu- 
man life, and so dwelt among ns — and, distin- 
guished among all His fellows by the nobility of 
His character and the abundance and beneficence 
of His activities, we } His disciples, who com- 



Prologue 



1 1 



panied with Him through the three ever memo- 
rable and eventful years of His public ministry, 
beheld His glory, glory, a transcendent moral 
beauty, as of the only begotte?i front the Father — 
full of Grace and Truth. 

Nor do we His disciples stand alone in our wit- 
ness to the capital fact of the Incarnation for John, 
who, as has been stated, was sent from God for the 
express purpose, beareth witness of Him, and with 
the voice and manner becoming a herald, and 
with all the solemnity of an official proclamation, 
pointing Him out to the multitude, crieth, saying 
in a style peculiar to himself, though paradoxical 
and enigmatical to us : " This was He of whom 
I spake when, addressing you yesterday, / said, 
'He that, now about to enter upon the duties of 
His office as Messiah, cometh after me, my suc- 
cessor in the Messianic work, is, as my official 
superior, ranking and taking precedence of His 
subordinate, become before me ; for, belonging as 
He doth, not to a temporal, but an eternal order of 
being, He was before me in point of time, as well 
as being in respect of His rank, dignity and mis- 
sion, my superior in official station.' " 

And to this official testimony of the forerunner 
to the divine nature and mission of Jesus as the 
Christ, may be added that of the experience of His 



12 The Incarnate Word 

disciples : for of His fulness of spiritual blessing, 
as from an inexhaustible fountain, according to our 
several needs at each successive crisis in our lives, 
we all received, and that, not after the old legal 
manner, but, in true gospel fashion, each blessing 
appropriated becoming the foundation of a still 
greater good to be bestowed, and which may be 
best expressed in this somewhat paradoxical 
formula— grace for grace. 



And this truly blessed experience is in strong 
contrast with that of the old economy, under 
whose mandatory discipline many 

Christ's Unique c t r i v j 

of us, as Jews, formerly lived : 

Pre-eminence, . _ _ . 

for the Law, being at best but a 
shadow of the better things to come, was given, 
that is, officially promulgated, by Moses as mediator 
only, whereas, as the substance of that of which 
the Law was but the shadow, Grace and Truth, 
that is, Life and Light, the grace that issueth in life, 
and the truth that becometh light in believers, and 
so the very reality of spiritual things themselves, 
came in the person, and by the ministry, of Jesus 
Christ. 

And what is more ; no mere man, not even 
Moses who was favored with an intimacy of inter- 
course with Him beyond all his fellows, hath seen 



Prologue 



13 



or fully known God at any time : the only begotten 
Son, the Incarnate Word, which is in the bosom of 
the Father, He and He only hath declared Him ; 
and He and He alone, in the very nature of the 
case, can truly reveal Him. 



PART FIRST 

Christ's Self-revelation to the World 



Early Ministry in Judea* 

Now John, the forerunner and herald of the 
Messiah, had been preaching in the wilderness of 
Judea for about six months pre- 

Historietil TT . rr . , , 

vious to His official advent, pre- 

Jntrofl notion. . 

paring the way for His appearing. 
A profound sensation was produced by the ministry 
of the Baptizer, as he had come to be called, inso- 
much that crowds of excited people from every 
quarter flocked to the Jordan Valley to see and 
hear the man whom all had come to believe was, if 
not the Christ Himself, certainly one of the extra- 
ordinary messengers who, according to the popular 
opinion and expectation, were to immediately 
precede and herald His coming. 

At first the Sanhedrim, the great council of the 
Jews, the supreme authority in the nation as to all 
matters of a religious nature, closing its eyes to 
what was going on, assumed an attitude of indif- 
14 



John's Witness to Jesus 



15 



ference to the work of the rude wilderness 
preacher. Observing, however, that things were 
daily taking a more serious turn, and that the peo- 
ple were beginning even to ask themselves whether 
John were not indeed the Christ, they felt that 
they must assert themselves, and, in the exercise of 
their proper authority, officially to demand from 
John an explanation of his mission, and his cre- 
dentials for the work he was doing, as he had 
neither sought nor obtained either licensure or or- 
dination at their hands. 



And this is the witness of John, when the official 
Jews, they of the Sanhedrim, sent unto him from 
Jerusalem, the religious centre 

John's First ^ ecdesiastical capital Q f the 
Witness to , , r 

nation, a deputation composed of 

Jesus. 

priests and Levites to interrogate 
him as to his personality and claims, and with the 
view of having him declare himself, putting to him 
the question direct, to ask him, saying: " Who art 
thou?" 

And, had John been a corrupt or ambitious man, 
taking advantage of the popular opinion concern- 
ing him, he might have claimed to be the Christ ; 
but, with his characteristic frankness and humility, 
he promptly confessed and denied not ; and, mak- 



1 6 The Incarnate Word 



ing no pretension to be such personage, he con- 
fessed, saying : " I am not the Christ ! 

And, surprised at his denial, but confident that 
he was some person of distinction, making another 
guess, they asked him, saying: " What then ? If 
thou art not the Christ, what is the function thou 
hast to discharge? Art thou Elijah, whom the 
prophet Malachi announced as the forerunner of 
the Messianic day ? " 

And, though in a spiritual sense John was the 
person of whom Malachi had spoken, yet not so as 
his questioners and those whom they represented, 
who put a literal sense on the prophet's words, sup- 
posed, and, therefore, answering the question in 
the sense in which it was asked, denying such 
identity, he saith : " I am not Elijah ! " 

" Our great lawgiver taught us in the latter days 
to look for a prophet like to himself," continued 
the deputies, and, nettled by his repeated dis- 
claimers, with some show of impatience in their 
manner and imperiousness in their tone, demand- 
ing to know whether they were right in their pres- 
ent guess, addressing him abruptly, they said : 
u Art thou the prophet? If thou art not Elijah, 
art thou then a new Moses ? ' ' 

And, concise to a degree in his reply, contenting 
himself with still another disclaimer, he answered : 



John's Witness to Jesus 17 



" No. I am not Elijah, neither am I a new- 
Moses ! " 

Having exhausted the list of illustrious person- 
ages one or other of whom they erroneously sup- 
posed he might be, with the view of forcing the 
Baptizer from the negative attitude to which he 
was restricting himself, and to compel him to de- 
clare himself, changing their tactics, they said 
therefore unto him : " Who art thou ? Tell us 
that we may give an answer to them that sent us. 
What say est thou of thyself ? " 

Recognizing the propriety of this question, see- 
ing that, as the representatives of the supreme 
ecclesiastical authority in Israel, it was their right 
to know in what character he appeared thus pub- 
licly as a teacher among the people, and having no 
wish to conceal his identity, making answer in lan- 
guage which containeth at once the explanation asked 
for, and the guarantee of his mission, he said : " I 
am the Voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as said 
Isaiah, the prophet I ' ' 

And they, the deputies, had been sent from the 
sect of the Pharisees, the religious zealots, ritual- 
ists, and ultra conservatives in Israel, and who 
therefore more than others would naturally be 
shocked by the innovation, the solemn and star- 



1 8 The Incarnate Word 



tling rite of baptism with which the new movement 
introduced by John was inaugurated — an innova- 
tion such as no one, save the Messiah Himself, or 
one of His forerunners might introduce. John, 
however, had expressly disclaimed being any of 
these. Hence the deputies, who had not under- 
stood that, in the description he had just given of 
himself, John had intimated that he was the fore- 
runner of the Messiah, and wishing to condemn 
him by his own admissions, they asked him, and 
with considerable warmth said unto him: "Why 
then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christy 
neither Elijah, neither the prophet ? n 

Himself, Heaven-commissioned, and charged 
with the inauguration of the Messianic time, and 
being therefore a law unto himself, ignoring in the 
premises the authority of the Sanhedrim, as one 
who owed no obligation to Jerusalem, that is, to 
the schools, but only to nature and to God, in a 
reply full of solemn dignity and even threatening, 
in which he maketh apparent the importance of the 
present situation, John ans7vered them, saying : 
" I baptize with water : in the midst of you stand- 
eth One zvhom ye know not, even He that Cometh 
after me, at once my successor and my superior, 
the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to un- 
loose /" 



John s Witness to Jesus 



19 



These things, so intimately associated with the 
inauguration of Messiah's reign in the world, were 
done in Bethany, an obscure village in Perea, be- 
yond, that is, on the east side of the river Jordan, 
where John was then baptizing, his earlier ministry 
having had for its scene the wilderness of Judea. 

The deputies had heard words which might have 
moved them to deeper questionings ; but for this 
they had no heart. Enough for them to have dis- 
charged their specific duty. And as for the peo- 
ple, had they been ready for faith, had they had 
any spiritual receptivity whatever, such testimony 
as John bore to Jesus, especially coming from such 
lips, would have been enough to make the divine 
fire break forth in Israel \ but alas, the words fell 
upon dull ears and unsympathetic hearts ! 

John lost no opportunity of bearing testimony to 
the Coming One. Accordingly, on the morrow 
after the interview between him- 

JoJtn's Second ir 1,1 i . r T 

sell and the deputation from Te- 

JF itness to Till 

rusalem had taken place, he seeth 

Jesus. 1 

Jesus coming unto him, and rec- 
ognizing Him, and pointing Him out to the multi- 
tudes, in language as universal and evangelical as 
it is accurately descriptive of His sacrificial work, 
and declarative of His Messianic mission, saith: 



2o The Incarnate Word 



"Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away 
the sin of the world / 

"For, notwithstanding His humble appearance 
this is He of whom I spake when, addressing 
you yesterday, / said, ' After me cometh a Man 
which, though my successor, is become before me, 
my superior : for both in point of time and official 
rank and dignity, He was before me' And 
though my kinsman according to the flesh, not hav- 
ing previously met or seen Him, I kneiv Him not ; 
but, nevertheless, that He should be made manifest 
to Israel, as the Messiah, for this cause came I bap- 
tizing with water. ' ' 

And in explanation of how He came to recognize 
in Jesus the Messiah, John bare witness saying : 
i * 1 have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out 
of Heaven ; and it abode upon Him. And I knew 
Him not then, neither personally nor as Messiah ; 
but He that sent me to baptize with water, He 
said unto me : ' Upon 7uhomsoever thou shall see 
the Spirit descending, and abiding upon Him, the 
same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.' 
And I have seen, and borne witness that this is 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God ! " 

Again, on the morrow, John was standing at the 
place where he was accustomed to preach and to 



Early Disciples 



21 



receive those who came to him for baptism, and 
with him were two of his dis- 

John's Thivtl IV it- • z7 7/771. r 

ciples ; and he looked upon Jesus 

ness to Jesits. . 

as He walked, and again formally 
proclaiming His Messiahship, saith : "Behold, the 
Lamb of God ! " 

And the two disciples that were standing with 
him heard him speak these immortal words, and, 
regarding them on the part of 

Early Discijtles : T , , , - 

|ohn as absolving them from 

Anrtvetv and 

further allegiance to himself, and 

Peter. & 7 

as a virtual recommendation to 
cast in their lot with Him to whom they referred, 
drawn by the divine attraction of the Man, they 
followed Jesus ! 

And hearing footsteps behind Him, with the 
quick instinct of sympathy that He was being 
sought for the first time, Jesus turned and beheld 
them following, and, by way of relieving their 
evident embarrassment and opening the way to that 
intimacy of intercourse between them which was 
never afterward broken, saith unto them : " What 
seek ye ? ' ' 

And, staggered for the moment by this unex- 
pected and most searching question, hardly know- 
ing what to reply, but in their confusion answering 



22 



The Incarnate Word 



Him by a counter-question which modestly in- 
timated their desire to speak with Him in private 
with a view to possible discipleship, addressing 
Him by the title common to all Jewish teachers, 
they said unto Him : ' 1 Rabbi — which is to say, be- 
ing interpreted, Master — where abide st Thou ? " 

To this somewhat evasive question of the 
would-be disciples, Jesus doth not give a direct an : 
swer, but extending to them a personal invitation, 
which, taken together with His previous question, 
is a parable of the gospel, a message of faith, He 
saith unto them : " Come, and ye shall see ! " 

Promptly accepting His gracious invitation they 
came therefore with Jesus, and saw where He 
abode : and they abode with Him in the most de- 
lightful intercourse during the remaining hours of 
that memorable day : for // was about the tenth 
hour, mid-afternoon, when this never-to-be-forgot- 
ten meeting took place between these first two dis- 
ciples and their Lord. 

One of the two that heard John speak, and fol- 
lowed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter" s brother ; 
the other, who is anonymous, being, as is generally 
supposed, the author of this Gospel, who elsewhere 
describeth himself as "the disciple whom Jesus 
loved." 

He, Andrew, setting an example of personal 



Early Disciples 



23 



activity worthy the imitation of all subsequent dis- 
ciples, in the. enthusiasm born of his great discovery, 
findeth first his own elder brother Simon, and, as 
the result of the evening spent with Jesus, taken in 
connection with the testimony John had borne to 
Him, saith unto him: "We have found the 
Messiah — a Hebrew word which is, being in- 
terpreted, in Greek, the Christ, the Anointed One ! " 

And with no thought of the importance and far- 
reaching consequences of this fraternal act, he 
brought him unto Jesus ! 

With a penetrating glance that reached to the 
very centre of the newcomer's individuality, Jesus 
looked upon him, and with that prophetic insight 
which gave Him a complete knowledge of men, ad- 
dressing him, said : " Thou art Simon the son of 
John : but, as indicative of the moral change thou 
shalt undergo and of thy future character, thou 
shalt be called-, in Aramaic, Cephas — which is by 
interpretation, in Greek, Peter, that is, Rock, and 
in English, Stone ! M 

On the morrow, being the second day of the 
public ministry of Jesus, the hour not yet having 
come for His appearance in His 
official character at Jerusalem, 

Nathanael. rr -771 T i 

He was minded to leave Judea 



\ 



24 The Incarnate Word 

for the time, and to go forth unto Galilee, the 
northern province in which all His private life had 
been spent ; and as He was about to go hence in 
company with His three earliest disciples, Andrew, 
Peter and John, He Himself findeth Philip ; and 
in the exercise of His Messianic sovereignty, ad- 
dressing him for the first time in language which in- 
volved discipleship and enlistment in His service, 
Jesus saith unto him : " Follow Me ! " 

Now Philip was from Pethsaida, of the city of 
Andrew and Peter, in which many of our Lord's 
mightiest works were wrought, without the slight- 
est perceptible moral improvement of the people, 
and which was situated on the northwestern shore 
of the Sea of Galilee. 

Following the example of his senior disciple 
Andrew, in his eagerness to spread the good news, 
Philip findeth his friend Nathanael, who was of 
Can a of Galilee, and telling the story in his own 
somewhat heavy and complicated way, giving a 
full and formal account of His Messiahship, as far 
and as accurately as he was acquainted with the 
facts, while laboring under the excitement of their 
great discovery, saith unto him : " We have found 
Him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, 
did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph ! 7 ' 

And, unable to recall any prophecy associating 



Early Disciples 



2S 



the obscure and neighboring village of Joseph with 
so high a destiny, scouting the very idea, in utter 
incredulity, Nathanael said unto him : " Can any 
good thing, anything so eminent as the Messiah, 
come out of Nazareth, of which not even the name 
can be found in all our Scriptures ? " 

Not wishing, even if able, to argue the question 
with the sceptical Nathanael, or to wrestle with his 
prejudices, but challenging his friend to put the 
matter to a practical test, confident of the result, 
Philip saith unto him : " Come and see ! " 

Nathanael, as every one who desireth to know the 
truth should, acting upon the challenge of Philip, 
came to Jesus to discover for himself whether what 
his friend of Bethsaida had said regarding Him 
were so. 

And Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and 
looking him through and through, even as He had 
done Simon Peter, and discovering his sterling 
qualities as a man, addressing those standing by, 
saith of him : ' ' Behold, an Israelite indeed, in 
whom is 110 guile / ' ' 

Having overheard the remark that Jesus had just 
made about him, surprised that one hitherto a total 
stranger to him, and who now seeth him for the first 
time, should form any, much less such a judgment 
respecting him, Nathanael saith unto Him ; 



26 The Incarnate Word 



" Whence knozvest Thou me ? Hath Philip or any 
other of my friends given Thee any information 
concerning me ? " 

By way of indicating that His knowledge of 
Nathanael was wholly independent of the ordinary 
channels of information, and evincing thereby in- 
dubitable proof of His divine commission, as did 
the prophets of old, and as Philip was certain in 
some way He would, referring to an incident in his 
life that Nathanael felt sure could be known only 
to himself and the All Seeing One, or one super- 
naturally endowed, Jesus answered and said unto 
him : " Before Philip called thee, when, in devout 
meditation, thou wast sitting, as thou didst suppose, 
in complete concealment under the protection af- 
forded by the thick branches and broad leaves of 
the fig tree, I saw thee ! ' ' 

No longer in doubt, but fully convinced that 
Philip was right, and that Jesus was indeed the 
Messiah, and recognizing at once His divine origin 
and mission, in a confession of faith at once spon- 
taneous, simple, full-hearted and fervent, Nathan- 
ael answered Him, saying : " Rabbi, Thou art the 
Son of God : Thou art the King of Israel ! 9 ■ 

Well pleased with the prompt and simple faith 
of Nathanael, and congratulating him upon it, but 
at the same time intimating that even this expres- 



Jesus' First Miracle 



27 



sion of belief did not exhaust the power of faith, 
Jesus anszvered, and, in a reply alike gracious and 
sublime, said unto him: "Because I said unto 
thee, t 1 saw thee under the fig tree, 1 believes t 
thou ? as evidences of My Messiahship thou shalt 
see greater things than these." And, continuing, 
He saith unto him : " Verily, verily I say unto 
you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and, what was 
only a dream in the case of Jacob, the angels of 
God actually, in open vision, ascending and de- 
scending upon the Son of Man / " 

And on the third day after their departure from 
Judea there zuas a marriage in Cana of Galilee, 



of Jesus zvas there : and, when their arrival in the 
village became known, Jesus also was bidden, and 
His disciples, to the marriage feast. 

Now the festival in connection with such occa- 
sions frequently lasted as long as a week, and, in this 
instance, had already been in progress several days 
when Jesus and His disciple-band came hither. 
And when, by reason of this unexpected addition 
to the number of guests for which provision had 
been made, the wine, which was an indispensable 



Jesus' First 



Miracle. 



not far from Nazareth where 
Jesus had been brought up ; and, 
as one of the guests, the mother 



28 



The Incarnate Word 



accompaniment of a Jewish wedding, failed, the 
supply on hand having become completely ex- 
hausted, aware of the situation, in order to relieve 
the embarrassment of the newly wedded pair, the 
mother of Jesus, confident of His ability to supply 
the deficiency, and that a mere hint as to the actual 
condition was all that was necessary, speaking with 
Him in private, saith unto Him : " They have no 
wine / ' ' 

And, perceiving that His mother did not yet un- 
derstand the nature of the crisis in His earthly life 
that had now been reached, and of the change in 
their relations which this crisis had brought about 
— that, having entered on His Messianic office, He 
was no longer a private individual, but a public 
person, that He was not in fact now so much her 
Son as the Son and Servant of Jehovah, whose will 
was henceforth to be His law, and to whom His 
supreme allegiance was due, and that, therefore, 
He could not allow even her to influence His con- 
duct in the Messianic sphere — hence, administer- 
ing what to us soundeth like a rebuke, while intimat- 
ing, at the same time, that the embarrassment of the 
present situation would in some suitable way be re- 
lieved, Jesus saith unto her: "Woman, what 
have I, as Messiah, to do with thee, as mother? 
Mine hour for action is not yet come. When that 



Jesus First Miracle 



29 



moment shall have arrived, I will not be found 
wanting in what is proper to be done ! " 

Made by His words to realize something of the 
awful truths to which Jesus had given utterance, and 
therefore retiring within her own proper bounds 
which, as mother, she had unwittingly overstepped, 
in the full confidence of love, leaving the most un- 
restricted liberty of action to her Son, addressing 
them in language which containeth an important 
lesson for us all, His mother saith unto the serv- 
ants : " Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it ! " 

Now owing to the large number of guests as- 
sembled at the wedding feast, there were six water- 
pots or jars of stone set there in a convenient 
place, after the Jews 1 manner of purifying, con- 
taining two or three firkins, that is, nine gallons 
apiece, or about one hundred and fifty gallons in 
all ! 

Entering into the spirit of the occasion, and 
anticipating the joyous surprise of His host at the 
rich wedding gift by which He honored the house 
where He and His disciples had just been hospita- 
bly received, addressing the servants in words 
which imply that, in the spread of His kingdom, 
what man can do, man must do before the divine 
interposition can be looked for or expected, Jesus 
saith unto them : "Fill the waterpots with water / ' ' 



30 



The Incarnate Word 



And, recalling what His mother had said to 
them, with an unquestioning and prompt obedience, 
and a genuine enthusiasm which each of His 
followers should be ever ready to emulate, doing 
as "He said, they filled them up to the brim ! 

And now, aware of the miraculous transformation 
that had already taken place in the jars of water, in 
language which breatheth a spirit of overflowing joy 
and even gaiety, He saith unto them : " Draw out 
now, and bare unto the ruler of the feast ! " 

'And, in the same spirit of suppressed mirthful- 
ly ess, aware of what had happened, again promptly 
doing as He said, they bare it / 

And when the ruler of the feast, as in duty 
bound, tasted the water now become wine, and 
knew not whence it was — but the servants which 
had drawn the water knew — the ruler of the feast 
calleth the bridegroom, and, in the spirit of pleas- 
antry, referring to a common custom in society, 
saith 7/nto Him : " Every man setteth 011 first the 
good wine ; and zvhen men have drunk freely, then 
that which is zuorse : but, reversing that order, 
thou hast kept the good wine until now. This is 
really better than anything we have had ! " 

This beginning of His miracles, which were the 
signs or credentials of His Divine Legation, did 
Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and thus manifested His 



Cleansing the Temple 



glory as the Sent One of God : and His disciples, 
confirmed in their previously formed views of His 
character, believed on Him. 

After tliis, having meanwhile returned to Naz- 
areth, He went down to Capernaum, which is by 
the Sea of Galilee, He and His 
cleansing the mo f ner ^ anc f jfj s brethren, and 

Temple. . 

His disciples ; and there they 
abode not many days. 

And the passover, one of the three great an- 
nual festivals of the fetus, was at hand, and as a 
true son of Israel, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to 
keep the feast. And on His arrival in the Holy 
City, to His amazement and indignation He found 
in the temple precincts those that for sacrificial pur- 
poses sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the 
brokers or changers of money sitting: and in 
the exercise of His Messianic sovereignty, as a 
symbol of authority rather than as a weapon of 
offence, He made a scourge of cords, and, in the 
display of a moral majesty, and in the grandeur of 
a supreme enthusiasm, before which all opposition 
was instantly paralyzed, and the startled and guilty 
traffickers quailed, cast all out of the temple courts, 
both the sheep and oxen : and He poured out the 
changers' money, and overthrew their tables : and 



The Incarnate Word 



to them that sold the doves He said : ' ' Take these 
things hence ; and, under the pretext of serving 
the sanctuary, converting this sacred enclosure into 
a mart of Mammon, make not My Father's House 
a house of merchandise ! ' ' 

When His disciples saw this display of Mes- 
sianic authority, recognizing in the mien and con- 
duct of Jesus an illustration of the true prophetic 
spirit and character, they remembered that, in the 
Sixty-ninth Psalm, // was written, " The zeal of 
Thine house shall eat me up" and immediately 
applied that scripture to this act of our Lord. 

On the other hand, however, as the sole judges 
of the credentials of all who claimed to exercise 
prophetic authority in Israel, highly indignant at 
what seemed to them an unwarrantable invasion of 
their prerogatives, blind to the Messianic signifi- 
cance of the act itself, with the view of maintaining 
the respect of the people to the religious sentiment 
of whom Jesus had appealed, with a great show of 
authority, demanding some special warrant for His 
extraordinary proceeding, the official Jews there- 
fore answered and said unto Him : "What sign 
show est Thou unto us, seeing that Thou do est such 
things ?" 

Perceiving that the authorities were in no mood 
to know the truth, and that to accede to their de- 



Cleansing the Temple 33 



mand for a sign, would be utterly useless, availing 
Himself of the custom of the rabbis, and so avoid- 
ing the appearance of disrespect on His part, in an 
enigmatical sentence which He left them to un- 
riddle as best they could, Jesus answered, and, in 
words at once original, concise, profound, and 
prophetic, said unto them : " Destroy this Temple, 
and in three days I will raise it up / ' ' 

Interpreting this saying of Jesus as an allusion 
to the splendid structure which they regarded with 
the most passionate fanaticism, with a reverence 
amounting to idolatry, as being bound up with the 
hopes and pride of the nation, filled with fierce 
resentment at even the slightest intimation that it 
might be overthrown, and scouting such a proposi- 
tion as that which the words of Jesus seemed to 
imply as incredible, in ridicule of the very idea, 
the Jetvs therefore said : ' ' Forty and six years 
was this Temple in building and wilt Thou, in- 
deed, such a one as Thou, raise it up in three 
day s ?" 

Such solution did the unbelieving Jews give to 
themselves of the enigmatical saying of Jesus : 
but He, foreseeing all that was to take place, spake 
of the destruction and resurrection of the temple 
of His body, and so indicated' by His gesture, 
pointing to Himself as He spake, but which the 



34 The Incarnate Word 



Jews either failed to notice or chose to disregard. 
When, therefore, He was raised from the dead, His 
disciples remembered that He spake this ; and they 
believed the scripure, written in the Sixteenth Psalm, 
which pointed prophetically to the great event, and 
also the word which Jesus had said respecting 
Himself. 



Now when He was in Jerusalem at the pass- 
over, during the seven days which the feast lasted, 
though rejected by the official 
• MHonieaae many bdieved on His name, 

of Men. 7 . 7 

beholding the numerous unre- 
corded signs which He did. But having no faith 
in their faith, based, as it was, simply upon mira- 
cles, and not rooted in moral conviction, Jesus did 
not trust Himself unto them, for that, by reason 
of His prophetic intuition, He knew all men, and 
because He needed not that any should bear wit- 
ness concerning any man : for He Himself knew 
what -was in the particular man with whom at any 
time He had to do. 



Jesus and Ntcodemus 



Now there was in Jerusalem a man of the Phari- 
sees, named Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhe- 
drim, and so a ruler of the Jews, 
necessity o/ Re- w ^ ] ia( j either himself been a 

generation. . 

witness of, or had heard about, 
the miracles Jesus had wrought in the Holy City : 
the same, full of the carnal conceits and worldly 
notions which were characteristic of the sect to 
which he belonged, more than half suspecting, 
though not fully convinced, that Jesus was the 
Messiah, with the view to a more protracted and 
uninterrupted conference respecting His pretensions 
and mission, came to Him by night, and in a some- 
what pedantic and half-patronizing confession as a 
preface to the inquiries he proposed to make, ad- 
dressing Him deferentially, said to Him : " Rabbi, 
we of the Sanhedrim, whatever attitude Ave may 
assume for prudential reasons before the public, 
know that Thou art a teacher come from God : for 
no man can do these signs zvhich Thou doest, ex- 
cept God be with him ! ' ' 

35 



3 6 



The Incarnate Word 



Without noticing this formal and somewhat 
flattering address of Nicodemus, avoiding all for- 
malities, striking at once to the core of the matter, 
speaking directly to his unconscious spiritual needs, 
demolishing at one blow the whole Pharisaic pro- 
gram, and startling his distinguished nocturnal in- 
terlocutor with this solemn and uncompromising an- 
nouncement, Jesus answered and said unto Him : 
" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ' Except a man 
be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God'!" 

Betraying the most lamentable ignorance of any- 
thing savoring of spirituality, confounding a radi- 
cal moral renewal with a new physical existence, 
and offended at Jesus, as though He were trifling 
with him, for proposing to him what seemed such 
an absurd condition, holding firmly to the literal 
sense of the Lord's words, in a tone of surprise and 
incredulity, Nicodemus saith unto Him: "How 
can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter 
a second time into his mother 's womb, and be 
born ?" 

Perceiving Nicodemus' embarrassment, proceed- 
ing forthwith to more fully explain His meaning, 
pointing out the true spiritual nature of His king- 
dom, indicating the essential principles which are 
the indispensable conditions of entering into it, ex- 



Jesus and Nicodemus 



31 



plaining the philosophy of the great moral revolu- 
tion involved in such entrance, and at the same 
time setting forth the human impossibility of com- 
prehending the sovereign operations of the Divine 
Agent in effecting it, with deep solemnity, Jesus 
answered : "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can- 
not enter into the kingdojn of God ! 

" That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and 
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ! 

" Marvel not that I said unto thee, ' Ye must be 
born anew' The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every 
one that is bom of the Spirit ! ' ' 

Confessing himself a stranger to such spiritual 
influence, unable to comprehend teaching so revo- 
lutionary, so fundamentally different from all his 
previous ideas, and involving conceptions so unique 
and sublime, in an exclamation of incredulous 
amazement, Nicodemus answered and said unto 
Him : 6 ' How can these things be ? ' ' 

Before proceeding to enlighten His distinguished 
inquirer as to the matters which so greatly puzzled 
him, in a question half-reproachful, half-sorrowful, 
expressive of His astonishment at the astonishment 
of Nicodemus, and administering a stinging rebuke 



38 



The Incarnate Word 



to him because of an ignorance of spiritual things 
which in a person occupying his position was in- 
excusable and blameworthy, Jesus answered and 
said unto him : u Art thou the teacher of Israel, 
and under standest not these things ? ' ' 

Having said thus much with the view to rouse 
Nicodemus to sober reflection as to his spiritual 
state, recognizing his uprightness, and finding him 
now humble and docile, treating him with a touch- 
ing kindness and condescension, Jesus proceedeth to 
open Himself to him without reserve in an address 
remarkable for its fulness of matter — there being 
hardly a single important point in divinity which is 
left untouched — in which He replieth to all the 
questions this distinguished Pharisee had proposed 
to put to Him, and in which He opposeth from be- 
ginning to end, program to program : first Messiah 
to Messiah ; then salvation to salvation ; finally 
judgment to judgment; substituting with regard 
to each of these points the divine thought for the 
Pharisaic expectation : 

" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 'We speak not 
that which we have learned or been taught in the 
schools, but that which, being a 
matter of experience, we do 

of Life. _ * 

know, and, penetrating to the 



Jesus and Nisodemus 



39 



essence of things, to the divine realities, bear wit- 
ness of that we have seen ; and ye, the leaders of 
the old theocracy, of Israel after the flesh, through 
your unspirituality, receive not our witness.' 

"If, however, in what I have said about the 
moral state of man, the nature and necessity of the 
new birth, matters falling within the domain of 
your own consciousness, and the truth of which 
every one may verify for oneself, I told you earthly 
things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if, 
unfolding to you the designs of God, the wonders 
of redeeming grace, matters wholly inaccessible to 
the human mind, I tell you heavenly things ? 

"And, indeed, without faith in My testimony, 
there is absolutely no access for thee to those things 
which thou desirest to know, for no man by his 
own unaided reason hath ascended into Heaven, so 
as thereby to reach its lofty mysteries, and make 
himself acquainted with its high and holy truths, 
but He that, at His incarnation, descended out of 
Heaven, even He who now speaketh with thee, the 
Son of Man, which is or was in Heaven. If, there- 
fore, thou wouldest know spiritual truth, thou must 
sit at His feet and learn of Him ! 

"And what is more, and what I desire thee 
especially to note, is, that the mission of Messiah is 
widely- different from the current view which is. 



40 The Incarnate Word 



held respecting Him, that, instead of an earthly 
potentate, a great and powerful Jew, who, raised by 
His miracles to the summit of glory, should ascend 
the throne of Solomon, and, destroying the Gentile 
power and placing Israel at the head of humanity, 
rule the world, He came on earth to die for men, 
as was shadowed forth under the image of a sym- 
bol in your own Scriptures ; for as Moses lifted up 
the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the cure of 
those bitten by the fiery serpents, even so, from the 
moral necessities of the case, must the Son of Man, 
being put to death upon the cross, be lifted up : 
that whosoever believeth the facts with regard to His 
nature and mission may, in Him, be saved from the 
awful consequences of sin, and have eternal life ! 

"For, such was His boundless benevolence and 
compassion, that, so far from restricting the price- 
less boon of salvation to the Jews alone, as ye 
erroneously suppose, God so loved the world, that 
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth on Him, as Messiah, should not perish, but 
have eternal life ! 

"For, I assure thee, honored sir, God sent not 
the Son into the world on a mission of vengeance, 
that is, to judge the world, as ye suppose : but, on 
the contrary, that the world should be saved through 
Him / 



Jesus and Nicodemas. 



4i 



"He that believeth on Him of whatever race, 
whether Gentile or Jew, thereby becoming one with 
Him, is not judged, that is, is not subject to the 
penalty due to transgression : whereas He that be- 
lieveth not, but continueth in a state of alienation 
from God, being, even now, as good as punished 
— so certain is the doom of unbelievers — hath been 
judged already, because, refusing the offers of sal- 
vation, he hath not believed on the name of the only 
begotten Son of God ! 

"And this is the cause of the judgment, not that 
men are in spiritual darkness, but that the light is 
come into the world, and men loved the darkness 
rather than the light ; for their works zvere evil 7 

" For such is the pernicious effect of immorality 
on all inquiries after truth, that every one that 
doeth ill, whose habits of life are vicious, 
hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, 
lest his works should be reproved, and so ren- 
dered uncomfortable. But, on the contrary, 
he that doeth the truth, whose principles of life are 
good and upright, cometh to the light, that, tested 
by the standard of the sanctuary, his works may be 
made manifest that they have been wrought in 
God!" 



Last Witness of John to Jesus 



After these things which took place in Jerusalem, 
withdrawing from the Holy City as He had pre- 
viously retired from the Temple where the rulers 
refused to recognize His claims as Messiah, 
came Jesus and His disciples into the land or rural 
districts of Jadea ; and, making a tour of the towns 
and villages, there He tarried with them by about 
the space of three months, and through their 
agency baptized. 

And John also was at that time baptizing in 
ALnon near to Salim, on the other side of Jordan, 
because, being a region with many small streams, 
there was much water there : and thither they who 
still desired to be his disciples came, and were bap- 
tized. For John was not yet, as he subsequently 
was, cast into prison. 

There arose therefore, as a result of the excite- 
ment occasioned by the double baptizing of John 
and Jesus, a questioning on the part of John } s dis- 
ciples with a Jew about purifying, that is, as to the 
need and efficacy of any such rite as either John or 
42 



Last Witness of John to Jesus 43 



Jesus was administering. And while this discussion 
was in progress, they who were his adherents, and 
who had evidently failed from the witness their 
master had borne to Him to recognize in Jesus the 
Messiah, came unto John, and, in the language of 
surprise and complaint, and in a high state of excite- 
ment, said to him: "Rabbi, He that was with 
thee beyond Jordan, to whom in such exalted terms 
thou hast borne witness, behold, the Same, in utter 
ingratitude, setting Himself up as thy rival, and 
actually adopting thy rite, baptizeth, and, such is 
His popularity, that all men come to Him ! " 

Passing by the mere question of ritual as of second- 
ary importance, and going directly to the founda- 
tion of things, first emphasizing the relation between 
himself and Jesus of whom it was desired to make 
rivals, and then showing that all opposition, even all 
comparison between them, is out of place, in an 
address in which all the inherent greatness and 
nobility both of the man and the minister shine 
forth resplendent, bearing his fourth and last 
witness to Jesus, John answered and said: 
"That is all right. Things are precisely as 
they should be. Your jealousy of Jesus ariseth 
from your want of rightly understanding His 
nature and mission. The matter is of God. 
He would not be achieving such success, if God 



44 The Incarnate Word 



Himself did not give it to Him ; for, as a gen- 
eral principle, a man can receive nothing, except 
it have been given him from Heaven / 

" Moreover, ye should have expected this : for jy^ 
yourselves bear me witness, that I said : 'I am not 
the Christ, but that I am sent before Him ' / 

6 ' He that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but 
the friend of the bridegroom, which, in happy pas- 
sivity, standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly 
because of the bridegroom' 's voice : this my Joy 
therefore, instead of being diminished, is raised 
to its highest point by the message which ye bear 
me and is thus fulfilled / 

" For, emerging from the obscurity into which I 
am about to retire, as the moon paleth before the 
rising sun, He must increase, but I must de- 
crease ! 

" He that, as Jesus, cometh from above is 
above all : while he that is of the earth is of the 
earth, and of the earth he speaketh. He that com- 
eth from Heaven is above all, being superior to every 
other prophet in this, that what He hath seen and 
heard, of that He beareth witness : and yet, not- 
withstanding the crowds that are flocking to His 
ministry, even as they formerly did to mine, no 
man, certainly very few, receiveth His witness, be- 
lieving on Him as the Christ of God ! 



Last Witness of John to Jesus 45 

"He, however, that hath received His witness, 
concerning Himself, hath set his seal to this, for- 
mally and publicly avowing his belief and declaring 
his conviction, that God is true — true to His word, 
and hath kept the promise made to Adam, to Abra- 
ham, and to David ! 

< 1 For He whom God hath sent speaketh the 
words of God : for, in endowing Him for His 
work, He giveth not the Spirit by measure, that is, 
in any limited or restricted degree, as in the case 
of the prophets who preceded Him, and who there- 
fore only knew in part and prophesied in part. 

" As His chosen Messenger, the Father loveth 
the Son, and hath given all things into His hand 
pertaining to life and salvation. 

"He, therefore, that believeth on the Son in His 
official character, as Messiah, hath eternal life as 
an immediate and present possession ; but he that, 
shutting his eyes to the evidences of His Divine 
Legation, obeyeth, or believeth, not the Son, shall 
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
him / ' ' 



Jesus and the Samaritan Woman 



In our Lord's day Palestine or the Holy Land 
was divided into three provinces, Galilee in the 
north, Samaria in the centre, and 

Jesus at Jacob's T ^ , 

Judea m the south. 

Well, 

Now Jesus had spent the first 
nine months of His public ministry in the south- 
ern province, where John had, for more than a 
year, been exercising his ministerial functions, and 
whose great influence with the people had caused 
the authorities at Jerusalem no end of concern. 

When therefore the Lord knezu how, that is, 
with what jealousy and alarm the Pharisees had 
heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more 
disciples than John — although Jesus Himself bap- 
tized not, but His disciples — having no desire un- 
necessarily to intensify their hostility, or to involve 
Himself prematurely with the ecclesiastical authori- 
ties of the nation, in the exercise of that prudent 
precaution which characterized His entire career, 
He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee, 
where He would be less liable to violent interrup- 
46 



The Woman of Samaria 



47 



tion, and where, for the most part, the remainder 
of His ministry was spent. 

And in making this journey from Judea to Gali- 
lee, showing Himself thereby superior to the preju- 
dices of the more strict among His compatriots, 
who regarded the intermediate province as a pol- 
luted country, and who, in passing hither and 
thither between the northern and southern prov- 
inces, crossed the Jordan, and, at much personal 
inconvenience, made the more extended journey 
through Perea, in order to avoid it, He, on the con- 
trary, taking the most direct route, as the breaker- 
down of the middle walls of partition between 
peoples, as a moral necessity, must needs go 
through Samaria / 

So, in the course of His journey, He cometh to a 
city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel 
of ground that, well-nigh two thousand years before, 
Jacob gave to his son Joseph: and Jacob' s well 
was there. 

Jesus therefore, being wearied with His six hour 
journey under a tropical sun, sat thus by the well. 

It was about the sixth hour, or high noon, when 
Jesus and His disciple-band arrived at this historic 
spot. 

Now it came to pass while He was thus sitting 



48 The Incarnate Word 



by the well, according to the custom of the country, 
the females being the drudges and 

Living Water. to to 

slaves of the opposite sex, there 
cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water : and 
in violation of immemorial usage, startling the woman 
by His simple request, as the most natural way of 
opening the conversation between them, especially 
as He was very thirsty, Jesus saith unto her : 
" Give Me to drink ! " 

For His disciples, who would otherwise have 
ministered to His needs, were gone away into the 
city to buy food. Hence the ostensible reason for 
His asking this act of courtesy from the woman. 

The Samaritan woman therefore, detecting from 
His appearance and speech the nationality of her 
stranger suppliant, sharing in all the prejudices of 
her people, instead of instantly granting the favor 
asked, seeking for an explanation of a proceeding 
so unusual, in utter astonishment saith unto Him : 
"How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink 
of me, which am a Samaritan woman ? ' ' 

For, in explanation of the conduct of the woman, 
which to us seemeth so strange, it should be said 
that, owing to a race and religious hatred of cen- 
turies' standing between the two peoples, Jews have 
no dealings, no social intercourse, with Samaritans. 

Keeping His supreme purpose steadily in view, 



The Gift of God 



49 



staying not to answer her question and explain 
why, being a Jew, in violation of prevailing 
usage, He had asked her to do Him the favor of 
giving Him a drink of water, but turning the inci- 
dent to noblest ends, seeking to lift the thoughts of 
the woman to matters infinitely above the mere 
wants of the body, in language designed to excite 
her curiosity, to raise her expectations, and lead 
her on to further inquiry, Jesus a?iswered and said 
unto her : "If thou knewest the gift of God, and 
who it is 4hat saith to thee ' Give 7ne to drink ' ; for- 
getting all petty jealousies, and embracing the rare 
opportunity now afforded thee, thou wouldest have 
asked of Him, and, without cavil or question, He 
would have given thee something worth the having, 
even living water ! ' ' 

Attaching, as was to be expected, no spiritual 
significance to what our Lord had said, but putting 
upon His words their literal sense, with mingled 
feelings of surprise, curiosity and incredulity, and 
not without a spice of humor in her utterance, the 
woman saith unto Him : " Sir, Thou hast nothing 
to draw with, and the well is full ninety feet deep : 
from whence then hast Thou that living water of 
which Thou dost speak ? Art Thou greater than 
our father Jacob — for the illustrious patriarch is 
our ancestor as well as yours — who gave us the 



SO The Incarnate Word 



well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons and 
his cattle ? Dost Thou really mean to say that 
Thou canst furnish any better water than this or in 
any more abundant supply? " 

Not noticing the implied taunts of the worldly 
woman, but leading her gently and almost imper- 
ceptibly on from material matters to spiritual things, 
seeking to raise her desires by extoling the excel- 
lence of the gift He hath to bestow, and replying 
to her thoughts rather than her words, Jesus an- 
swered and said unto her : Ci Between the water of 
this well, plentiful and excellent as it is for the pur- 
pose for which it is intended, and the water that I 
have to give, there is really no comparison : for 
every one that drinketh of this water, shall thrist 
again ; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water 
that I shall give him, even the gospel of the grace 
of God, shall become in him a well of water, a 
perennial fountain of spiritual satisfaction, spring- 
ing up unto eternal life ! ' ' 

Still in frivolous and frolicsome mood, knowing 
little and caring less about the meaning and pur- 
pose of our Lord's words, but, taking them in their 
literal sense, in a sneering and sarcastic spirit, 
naively and with a touch of humor, the woman 
saith unto Him : " Sir, give me this water that I 



A Startling Announcement 



5 1 



thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw. 
Such water would be a fine thing, a really great 
convenience, a vast practical benefit : give it me, 
therefore, if Thou really hast it to give ! " 

Perceiving that to pursue this line of thought 
with this thoroughly worldly and sensual woman 
was useless, with the view of re- 

JPvohing the Sore. 1 • i i r 

clucmg her to a more sober frame 
of mind and of arousing her sleeping conscience, 
and at the same time of disclosing to her the fact 
that He with whom she now had to do, was not an 
ordinary Jew with whom she might trifle at will, 
like the faithful surgeon thrusting the lance right to 
the spot, hurting that he may heal, Jesus saith unto 
her : " Go, call thy husband, and come hither ! " 

With the same levity and want of seriousness 
which characterized her previous answers, seeking 
to parry a thrust of the sword of truth she some- 
what keenly felt, and endeavoring to hide her sense 
of shame under an affected air of mirthfulness, 
jauntily and with the spirit of unconcern character- 
istic of the pleasure-loving, light-living person she 
was, and with the evident intention of deceiving 
our Lord, the woman answered and said Jtnto 
Him : " I have no husband ! " 

Not having drawn His bow at a venture, the 



52 The Incarnate Word 



arrow aimed at her conscience having reached the 
mark, commending as far as possible the woman's 
candor, but, at the same time, exposing her vain 
attempts to cover the facts by her equivocation, 
with a touch of irony and a bite of sarcasm pro- 
ceeding to unfold to her her wanton life, thereby 
also revealing to her somewhat of His own char- 
acter, Jesus saith unto her : < ' Thou saidst well, 
' I have no husband ' : for thou hast had five hus- 
bands : and he whom thou now hast is not thy 
husband : this hast thou said truly ! ' ' 

Sobered by this astonishing revelation on the 
part of an unknown stranger; her light, half-bold 
mood entirely gone ; her eyes being opened, if, in- 
deed, her conscience be not also awakened ; of 
nimble thought, recovering quickly from the mo- 
mentary confusion occasioned by the disclosure of 
Jesus ; changing the subject now become disagree- 
ably close and personal, and taking refuge behind 
the long-standing religious controversy between the 
two peoples; with great diplomacy and consum- 
mate tact in the management of her case, the 
woman saith unto Him : 6 ' Sir, I perceive that 
Thou art a prophet, and as such, canst authori- 
tatively settle for us the disputed question as to 
which is the true religious centre of the world. 
Our fathers, from time immemorial, worshipped 



Spiritual Religion 



53 



in the temple on this mountain, even Gerizim here, 
at whose base we now are ; and ye, on your side, 
say that in Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, is the place, 
the one Temple, where men ought to worship. 
Now between these two conflicting opinions what 
is one to do ? where is one to go ? which is right ? 
Tell me." 



Saddened by the superstitious and degrading 
bondage to the mere externals and non-essentials 
in religion which the statement 

Sublime Divine r , ,. v j 

of the woman s question implied • 

Disclosures. . 

turning from the gloomy past, 
His soul filled with a divine enthusiasm as the 
vision of the New Era of which He was not only 
the Prophet, but which He Himself came to inau- 
gurate, when the local, national and transitory in 
religion shall have passed away before the univer- 
sal, spiritual and eternal ; resolving in passing the 
woman's theological perplexity by declaring as be- 
tween the rival sanctuaries for that of the Jews as 
against that of the Samaritans, for Mount Zion as 
against Gerizim ; then with a look to the future, 
rising not only above His own age, but above 
the prejudices of all ages and peoples, sounding 
the death-knell of all local religions, freeing the 
conscience from all thrall of place and tradition, 



^4 



The Incarnate Word 



relegating to the Heart, the true Temple of God, 
the whole office of worship, giving to mankind 
their charter of spiritual liberty for evermore, lay- 
ing the foundations of the New Religion of All. 
Humanity, with all the heavens as its sphere and 
all the earth its home ; thus showing Himself a 
Prophet indeed, following the woman's lead, giving 
utterance to the sublimest and most imperial spirit- 
ual conceptions in words of measureless signifi- 
cance, Jesus saith unto her: u Woman, though 
thou mayest think incredible what I am now about 
to say to thee, nevertheless believe Me, the hour 
cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jeru- 
salem, shall ye worship the Fattier ! 

" Ye worship that which ye know not : we wor- 
ship that which we know : for salvation is from 
the Jews. 

" But the hour cometh and now is, when the 
true worshippers shall worship the Father, not in 
any mere outward and formal service, in a material 
and fleshly sanctuary, but in the highest region of 
the soul, where the divine and human meet, the 
worship being conformed to the nature of its ob- 
ject, in spirit and truth : for such doth the Father 
seek to be His worshippers ! 

"God is spirit: and therefore absolutely free 
from all limitations of space and time : hence they 



Sunburst 



55 



that worship Him acceptably must, according to 
His nature, worship in spirit and truth ! " 

Made dizzy by the great discourse to which she 
had listened in dumb amazement, fainting at the 
sublimity of what she had heard, 
Jesus Reveals c ] ee p]y impressed, yet not fully 

Himself. , r . . 

convinced, feeling that such a 
revolution as Jesus had declared could only be af- 
firmed by One greater even than a prophet, and so, 
deferring a definite decision to some future time, 
with the view of bringing the conversation to a 
close, in her perplexity the woman saith unto Him : 
"I know that Messiah cometh — which is called 
Christ — when He is come, He will declare unto us 
all things /" 

Promptly on the word of the woman in which 
she declared her readiness to welcome Messiah in 
His prophetic dignity, the revelation, as always, 
being according to the faith of the recipient, in that 
character with infinite grace and condescension 
making Himself known to the woman as He had 
done to no other, Jesus saith unto her: " 1 that 
speak unto thee am He / ' ' 

And upon this august disclosure of His official 
person, at this crisis in the conversation, returning 
from the city whither they had gone to buy food, 



5 6 



The Incarnate Word 



came His disciples; and they ma7"velled that, in 
violation of the immemorial decorum of that coun- 
try, He zvas speaking with a woman ; yet, so pro- 
found was their reverence for their youthful Mas- 
ter, no man among them said, " What seekest 
Thou ? ' ' or, i ' Why speakest Thou with her ? ' ' 

So after Jesus had told her He was the Messiah, 
absorbed by the new thought which had thus been 
lodged in her heart, flushed with excitement and 
eager to tell the wonderful news — an illustration of 
the expulsive power of a new affection — forgetting 
what she came for, the woman left her waterpot, 
and went away into the city, and, playing the part 
of an evangelist, with true tact and great zeal, not 
declaring, "I have seen the Messiah," since, as a 
woman, her opinion would be lightly esteemed, but 
by way of suggestion, saith to the men : " Come, see 
a Man, which told me all things that ever I did ! 
Can this be the Christ ? ' ' 

As a result of the woman's extraordinary an- 
nouncement, the curiosity of the men being roused, 
and eager to see for themselves, 

The Sequel. , 7 , , r ,i 7 

they went out of the city, and 
hastening across the fields which separate Sychar 
from Jacob's well, arriving in constantly increasing 
numbers, they were coming to Him. 



Religion at First and Second Hand 57 



And from that city many of the Samaritans be- 
lieved on Him because of the ivord of the woman, 
who testified, ' ' He told me all things that ever I 

didr 

So when the Samaritans came unto Him, and 
saw and heard for themselves, they besought Him 
to abide with them : and, perceiving their readiness 
to receive the truth, He abode there two days. 

And many more believed because of His word ; 
and they said to the woman : " Now we believe, not 
because of thy speaking, much as we are indebted 
to thee for that ; for we have heard for ourselves, 
and, from His marvellous teaching and the be- 
nignity of His disposition, know that this is indeed 
the Christ, the Saviour of the world ! " 

/;/ the meanwhile, that is, during the time be- 
tween the departure of the woman and the arrival 
of the Sycharites, the disciples, 

The Spiritual • i TT . ^ ■ ^ 

anxious about His physical 

Harvest. 

strength, prayed Him, saying: 

" Rabbi, eat ! " 

But, filled with the enthusiasm of soul-saving, 
replying enigmatically to the urgent entreaties of 
His disciples, so as thereby to raise their thoughts 
also to spiritual things, He said unto them: "I 
have meat to eat that ye know not ! " 



s8 



The Incarnate Word 



Attaching only a gross and literal sense to our 
Lord's words, as though He referred to food brought 
in their absence, the disciples therefore said one to 
another: "Hath any man brought Him aught to 
eat?" 

Seeing the strange misconception of His dis- 
ciples, who had as yet advanced but a little way in 
the knowledge of spiritual things, explaining that 
His food was His work, unlike ministers, who per- 
form their duties in a perfunctory way, Jesus saith 
unto them: "My meat is to do the ivill of Him 
that sent Me, and to accomplish His work / 

"Say not ye, as an excuse for indolence in 
garnering the heavenly wheat, as ye are accustomed 
to do with reference to a kindred process in the 
natural world, ' There are yet four months after 
the seed sowing, and then cometh the harvest' ; 
behold, I say unto you, ' Lift up your eyes, and look 
on the fields, that they are white already unto har- 
vest ! ' 

" In the spiritual world there is no need of wait- 
ing, for the harvest is all the year round. 

"He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gather eth 
fruit unto life eternal ; that he that sovueth and 
he that reapeth may rejoice together. 

" For herein is the saying true, ' One soweth, 
and another reapeth' I sent you to reap that 



The Spiritual Harvest 



59 



whereon ye have not labored : others, your prede- 
cessors in Messianic toil, have labored, and ye are 
entered into their labor : and so it will be till the 
harvest of the world is entirely reaped." 



Jesus in Galilee* 



And after the ^two memorable days Jesus spent 
with the Samaritans in Sychar, continuing His 
journey, He went forth from 

Galilee's JVeleome . 7 . . ^ 7 . 7 

thence into Galilee. 

For Jesus Himself testified, 
that a prophet hath no honor in his own country. 
So, instead of beginning His Messianic work in 
Galilee, He began by making Himself known and 
honored outside of it, at Jerusalem, and in Judea, 
and in Samaria ; hence, when at length He came 
into Galilee, proud of their fellow-countryman, the 
Galileans received Him, having seen all the things 
that He did in Jerusalem at the feast of the Pass- 
over, about nine months before ; for, remote as was 
the province from Jerusalem, they also, in common 
with all Jews, went unto the feast. 

Now when Jesus arrived in His own country, 
He came therefore again unto Cana of Galilee, 
the scene of His first miracle, 

The Nohletnan's 7 , T 7 , 

iv here He made the water zvine. 

Son Healed. 

And there was a certain noble- 
man, 7chose sou was sick at Capernaum twenty 
60 



The Nobleman s Son Healed 61 



miles to the eastward of Cana. When he heard 
that Jesus, whose fame as a Divine Healer had 
preceded Him, was come out of Judea into Galilee, 
lie went unto Him, and, supposing that His pres- 
ence at the bedside of the patient was necessary, 
besought Him that He would come down to Caper- 
naum and heal his son ; for he was at the point of 
death, and all hope of saving him depended on 
what Jesus could do for him. 

Neither granting his petition nor refusing the 
nobleman's request, but as a necessary corrective 
of the moral condition of His suppliant, referring 
to and rebuking that tendency which was so 
marked a characteristic of the Jews, Jesus there- 
fore said unto him : " Except ye see signs and 
wonders ye will in no wise believe ! ' ' 

Presuming our Lord to be subject to the limita- 
tions of an ordinary physician, restricting His 
healing power to His personal presence beside the 
patient not only, but to this present life as well, 
impatient of all delay, with no heart for theological 
controversy, or for aught else but the recovery of 
his son, pleading the urgency of his case and using 
terms of endearment which made his request all the 
more touching, in the anguish of his heart the 
nobleman saith unto Him, "Sir, come down ere 
my child, my baby boy, die / " 



62 The Incarnate Word 



Moved with compassion, yielding to the faith 
which breathed in the nobleman's prayer, but in 
such a way as immediately to elevate and purify it, 
putting it to the test in the very point where it was 
weakest, surprising the distressed father with this 
glad announcement, Jesus saith unto him : " Go 
thy ay ; thy son liveth ! ' ' 

It was enough. His appearance and manner be- 
getting in him the fullest confidence, the man be- 
lieved the word that Jesus spake unto him, and 
with happy heart he went his way back to Caper- 
naum. 

And as he was now going down, eager to convey 
the joyful news, his servants met him, anticipating 
his inquiry, and saying that the crisis was past, that 
his son lived, and would surely recover ! 

So when he heard the glad announcement, he in- 
quired of them the hour when he began to amend. 
They said therefore unto him : " Yesterday at the 
seventh hour the fever left him ! ' ' 

So the father knew that it was at that hour in 
which Jesus said unto him, " Thy son liveth :' 1 
and himself believed that Jesus was the Christ, and 
his whole house / 

This is again the second sign that Jesus did, 
having come out of Judea into Galilee : both 
being wrought at Cana, the former on His first re- 



The Nobleman s Son Healed 63 



turn, and this latter on the occasion of His second 
return to His own country. This, however, was 
the first case of telepathy, or healing at a distance, 
which Jesus did, and the first case of such kind of 
healing, moreover, of which any record is had. 



The Beginning of Conflict* 



In Judea Again. 

About two months after these things there was a 
feast of the Jews, and, as was His wont, Jesus 
went tip to Jerusalem to join in 

The Miracle of . , , . 

its celebration. 

XtethesiUi. . 

Now there 7vas in Jerusalem 
by the Sheep Gate, a fountain or pool, whose 
waters, at certain times, possessed wonderful 
medicinal qualities and healing properties, and 
which, from this circumstance, is called in Hebrew 
Bethesda, that is, House of Mercy, having built 
around it for the accommodation of the unfortunate 
who sought to avail themselves of its benefits, five 
porches. 

In these lay a multitude of them that were sick, 
blind, halt, ivithered, waiting for the moving of the 
water, at which time only it was effective for heal- 
ing purposes. 

And a certain man was there among the num- 
ber, which, suffering from paralysis, had been no 
less than thirty and eight years in his infirmity ! 

When, drawn hither through His sympathy with 
64 



The Miracle of Bethesda 65 



the sick and the friendless, as He threaded His 
way among the hapless creatures, Jesus saw him 
lying, and, having informed Himself as to the 
facts in his case, knew that he had been now a long 
time in that case, moved with compassion, with the 
view of drawing the unfortunate man from the dark 
discouragement into which this long and useless 
waiting had plunged him, and of awakening hope 
afresh within him, He saith unto him: "Wouldest 
thou, dost thou really wish to, be made whole ? ' ' 

Not knowing the Stranger, and naturally sup- 
posing from His question that He attributed the 
fact that he remained for so long a time unhealed 
to indifference and want of will on his part, by way 
of disabusing His mind of any such impression, as- 
suring Him that it was no lack of desire, no fault 
of his, that he continued so long in his infirmity, 
telling Him his pitiful tale, the sick man answered 
Him, saying : "Sir, both poor, helpless and friend- 
less, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to 
put me into the pool : but, as the moving of the 
water occurreth at irregular intervals only, notwith- 
standing my best endeavors to get there in time, 
while I am coming, another more fortunate and 
less feeble than myself, time after time, steppelh 
down before me, until now, having given up all 
hope, I despair of ever being healed at all ! " 



66 



The Incarnate Word 



Whereupon, having heard his doleful story, 
proving Himself, as ever, the Friend of the friend- 
less and the Helper of the helpless, giving expres- 
sion at once to His own instinctive benevolence 
and to the despondent invalid a glad surprise, 
speaking in an accent that none could disobey, 
Jesus saith unto him : " Arise, take up thy bed, the 
mat whereon thou liest, and, going thence, walk ! " 

And straightway, though bathed in no refluent 
waters, a healing influence from the fountain of life 
itself, like an electric current, thrilling through his 
withered and powerless limbs, the man was ?nade 
whole, and, obeying with alacrity the command of 
His unknown Benefactor, took up his bed and 
walked ! 



Now it was the Sabbath on that day when this 
impotent man was healed and left Bethesda's 
porches, carrying his bed, rolled 

Jesus Charoea yp ^ ft upQn his back< 

with Sahbath r -, , , ,i ™ • 

Such an act, however, the rhan- 

ISreah-iitff. 

sees regarded as a violation of 
their rules for the observance of the Sabbath — rules 
so rigid, as utterly to dehumanize that most benefi- 
cent divine institution, and to positively forbid all 
works either of necessity or mercy, at least so far 
as human kind were concerned, on that day. 



The Miracle of Bethesda 



6 7 



So some of the official Jews who chanced to meet 
this newly healed man as he walked on his way, 
incensed at seeing their authority so openly set at 
defiance, stopped him, and in angry tones and 
menacing manner, said unto him that was cured : 
" Dost thou not know what day this is ? It is the 
Sabbath^ and it is not lawful for thee to take up 
thy bed. Hast thou forgotten the son of Shelomith, 
who, though half an Egyptian, was stoned to death 
for gathering sticks on that day? and art thou not 
aware that the prophet Jeremiah expressly said : 
' Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on 
the Sabbath day ' ? " 

Making no attempt at self-defence on the score 
of the law, but giving to his accusers an account 
of what had taken place in his case, and putting 
himself under the protection of Him who had 
miraculously given him the power to do as he was 
doing, deeming His command an all-sufficient 
warrant for his act, and offering it as his sole 
apology or excuse for what on his part seemed 
to them a serious breach of their Sabbath law, 
he answered them : " He that made me whole, 
the Same said unto me, ' Take up thy bed and 
walk ' /" 

Blind to the good deed done to the impotent 
man, and failing to see in it the seal of a divine 



68 The Incarnate Word 



commission on the part of Him who did it, whose 
person and authority they would therefore feel 
bound to respect ; but seeing only in His act a 
studied contempt for their authority, which they 
regarded as supreme, and resolving to bring Him 
to book as the chief offender in the case, whoever 
He might be, catching up the words of the healed 
man, they eagerly asked him, saying : " Who is the 
man that said unto thee, 6 Take up thy bed and 
walk' ?" 

But he that was healed wist not who it was 
that had cured him, and laid upon him the objec- 
tionable injunction : for he had never seen Him 
before, and immediately after He had spoken the 
words that restored to him his lost powers, anxious 
to avoid all undue excitement, Jesus had conveyed 
Himself away, a multitude being in that place, 
rendering it all the more easy for Him to escape 
recognition. 

Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple, 
whither he had gone to render thanks for the great 
mercy that had been shown to him, and, supple- 
menting his physical healing with a spiritual lesson, 
looking to the cure of his soul, in words of solemn 
caution, said unto him : " Behold, thou art made 
whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing befall 
thee /" 



Sabbath Healing Justified 69 



Straightway, therefore, the man went away, and 
told the Jews that it was One well known to them, 
even Jesus which had made him whole / 

And for this cause did the Jews begin to perse- 
cute Jesus, ever after seeking an opportunity to 
slay Him, because He did, that is, was in the habit 
of doing, these things on the Sabbath ! 

But, in justification of His habit of doing deeds 
of mercy on the Sabbath — deeds which were by no 
means in violation of the original 

Jesus Justifies hw Qf fourth eommandment> 
Mis Sfibbnth , . r . - 

but only of the Pharisaic moss put 

Work. . b r 

upon it by the rabbis — in a sublime 
appeal from the rescripts and traditions of man to the 
authority of God, sharply contrasting the merely 
negative, traditional observance of the Sabbath as en- 
joined by the rabbis, with the positive, final fulfill- 
ment of spiritual service for which it was a prepara- 
tion, proclaiming at once the unceasing beneficence 
of God in His works of providence, and of His own 
filial relation to Him, in a sentence which, were it 
not the highest truth would be the noblest poetry, 
and not the less emphatic because so condensed, 
Jesus answered them, saying : " My Father 
worketh even until now, and, in imitation of His 
supreme example, I work ! " 



7° 



The Incarnate Word 



For this cause, therefore, this double reason — 
the short defence which Jesus made of His course, 
so far from appeasing their wrath, serving only to 
make them the more bitter against Him — the official 
Jews sought the more to kill Him, because, as they 
alleged, He not only broke the Sabbath, but also, 
adding another and even more heinous offence to 
the first, being guilty of blasphemy, in that, being, 
as they erroneously supposed, a mere man, He called 
God His ozun Father, thereby making Himself 
equal with God ! 

Knowing the thoughts and evil designs of His 
enemies, the official Jews, resolving at the earliest 
opportunity to vindicate Himself from the charges 
of Sabbath breaking and blasphemy which they 
brought against Him, and to give a more full and 
particular explanation of His person and claims, 
of His office and mission, in an address of un- 
rivalled depth and majesty — an address remarkable 
in every respect, but in nothing more than the 
direct assumption of divine authority — for, abating 
nothing of the claims previously made, rising above 
all conventional grounds and above all mere human 
sanctions, soaring to the highest Heaven, placing 
Himself, as His Son, beside God, judging His very 
judges, condemning the highest tribunal of His 
people, propounding doctrines that we have no line 



Jes us' Witness to Himself 



7* 



to fathom and no mind to take in, Jesus therefore 
answered and said unto them : 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do 
nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do- 
ing : for zuhat things soever He 

Nature, and Pve- 777 70 777- 

doeth, these the don atso doeth in 

rogatives of Jesus, 

like manner. 

"For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him 
all things that Himself doeth : and greater works than 
these will He shew Him, that ye may marvel. 

"For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth 
them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will. 

"For neither doth the Father judge any man, but 
He hath given all judgment unto the Son ; that all 
may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. 

"He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the 
Father which sent Him. 

" V erily, verily, I say unto you, ' He that heareth 
My word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eter- 
nal life, and comet h not into judgment, but hath passed 
out of death into life? 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, 'The hour cometh, 
and now is, when the spiritually dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God ; and they that hear shall 
live ! ' 

"For as the Father hath life in Himself, even so 



72 The Incarnate Word 



> gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself : and 
He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because 
He is the Son of Man, 

"Marvel not at this : for the hour comet h, in which 
all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall 
come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resur- 
rection of life ; and they that have done ill, unto the 
resurrection of judgment, 

"I can of Myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: 
and My judgment is righteous ; because I seek not 
Mine own will, but the will of Him 

Four Distinct T ~ 

that sent Me, 

Witnesses to . 

"If I bear zvitness of Myself 
Jesus. J j j j 

My witness is not true. It is an- 
other, that beareth witness of Me ; and I know that 
the witness which He witnesseth of Me is true. 

" Te have sent unto John, and (a) he hath borne wit- 
ness unto the truth. 

"But the witness which I receive is not from man : 
howbeit I say these things, that ye may be saved. 

"He was the lamp that burneth and shine th : and 
ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light. 
But the witness which I have is greater than that of 
John : for (b) the works which the Father hath given 
Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear wit- 
ness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me, 



I 



Jewish Unbelief ami Inconsistency 73 



"And (c) the Father which sent Me, He hath borne 
witness of Me. Te have neither heard His voice at 
any time, nor seen His form. And ye have not His 
word abiding in you : for whom He sent, Him ye believe 
not. 

"Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in 
them ye have eternal life ; and (d) these are they which 
bear witness of Me ; and ye will not come to Me, that 
ye may have life. 

"I receive not glory from men. 

"But I know you, that ye have not the love of God 
in yourselves. 

Cause of JeivisR T ^ 7 , 

" 1 am come in My rather s 

Inbelief. 

name, and ye receive Me not : if 
another shall come in his own name, him ye will re- 
ceive. 

"How can ye believe, which receive glory one of an- 
other, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye 
seek not ! 

" Think not that I will accuse you to the Father: 
there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye 
have set your hope. For if ye be- 
jewtsh incon- n eve ^ Moses, ye zvould believe Me ; 

for he wrote of Me. But if ye 
believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My 
words ? " 



In Galilee Again. 



After these things, as on a previous occasion, 
retiring from the scene of conflict in Jerusalem, 
and returning again into the 

Feetling the Five . , r 

northern province, where, after a 

Thousand. 

protracted period of unceasing 
and exhausting labors, desiring to withdraw Him- 
self for a season from public notice, as also from 
the persecution of Herod, who had meanwhile be- 
headed the Baptist, Jesus went away to Bethsaida 
Julius, in Gaulonitis, on the other or northeast side 
of the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. 

A?td a great 7nullitude followed Him, not be- 
cause they hoped or desired to receive from Him 
any spiritual benefit, but from that vague, idle 
curiosity and love of excitement, which are the 
principles that gather nearly every crowd in the 
world, because they beheld the signs, the miraculous 
cures which He did on thein that were sick. 

And Jesus went 2tp into the mountain or range 
of hills which encircleth the lake, and there He sat 
with His disciples. 

74 



Feeding the Five Thousand 75 



Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, zvas 
at hand. 

Jesus therefore lifting tip His eyes, and seeing 
that a great multitude on their way to the feast, 
cometh unto Him, being moved with compassion 
for them, because they were as sheep not having a 
shepherd, having meanwhile taught them many 
things, proceeding to shew His tender concern for 
their physical as well as their spiritual needs, as the 
evening was drawing on, saith unto Philip, who 
was of Bethsaida, the very town near which they 
were then assembled: "Whence are we to buy 
bread that all these people may eat ? ' ' 

And this Jesus said to prove Philip, that is, to 
see whether his faith would be equal to the emer- 
gency : for He Himself knew what He would do. 

Making his calculation with prudence and good 
sense, and not with faith, speaking through his 
lips, Philip answered Him : " Two hundred 
pennytuorth of bread, even though we could pro- 
cure that much, is not sufficient for them, that 
every one may take even a little. This much, 
however, is beyond the capability of the neighbor- 
hood, so that, to furnish them with anything like a 
meal is out of the question, so far as we are con- 
cerned I " 

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's 



76 The Incarnate Word 



brother, who was also, like Philip, a native of the 
district, as strangely unmindful of our Lord's abil- 
ity to meet the difficulty as though he had never 
witnessed any display of His supernatural power, 
his faith, as a factor, not entering into the calcula- 
tion at all, but having made a discovery, though con- 
scious of its utter inadequacy, nevertheless ventur- 
ing to suggest it as the best solution of the problem 
he could think of, saith unto Him : " There is a 
lad here, which hath Jive barley loaves, and two 
little fishes : but what are these among so 
many ? ' ' 

It was enough, however. Having caused the 
disciples to realize their own utter inability to meet 
the emergency, with the view of teaching them in 
every such exigency to rely on His interposition, 
speaking as though the feast were already spread, 
with an eye to their orderly arrangement, so that 
no imposition or deceit might be practiced, or any 
passed over, in the distribution, Jesus said to them : 
' ' Make the people sit down / ' ? 

Now, being the spring season, there was much 
grass in the place. 

So the men sat dow7i thereon, as on a carpet, in 
ranks by hundreds, and by fifties, in number about 
five thousand ! 

Jesus therefore took the loaves which the dis- 



Feeding the Five Thousand 77 



ciples had provided as their contribution to the ex- 
temporized meal, and, making them the basis of 
the needed supply, having given thanks, through 
the agency of His disciples and other helpers 
pressed into the service for the occasion, He dis- 
tributed to them that were set down ; likewise also 
of the fishes as much as they would ! 

And when they were filled, having thus put to 
shame the mere rationalizing of Philip and Andrew, 
and showing His care for little things, and 
His dislike of all waste and extravagance, 
imparting a lesson in economy of very wide 
application to His followers for all ages, He saith 
unto His disciples : "Gather up the broken pieces 
which remain over, that nothing be lost ! ' ' 

So, in obedience to our Lord's directions, they 
gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with 
broken pieces from the five barley loaves, which re- 
mained over unto them that had eaten / 



When therefore the people saw the sign which 
He did, in its magnitude far surpassing that which 
any previous messenger from God 

Fttlse Enthiisi- n , ■. , , 

had wrought, their enthusiasm 
being raised to the highest pitch, 
they said : i ' This is of a truth the prophet like 
unto Moses that cometh into the world 7 " 



7 8 



The Incarnate Word 



Jesus therefore perceiving how utterly they had 
mistaken His character and misunderstood His 
mission, and that they were about to come and take 
Him by force, to make Him King, recoiling at the 
thought, with the view of preventing any such con- 
summation, leaving the excited multitude, with- 
drew again into the mountain Himself alone. 

And when evening came, at His urgent solicita- 
tion, that He might have another opportunity to 
show them His ability to come 



down unto the sea ; and they entered into a boat, 
and in obedience to His command were going over 
the sea unto Capernaum, which was situated on the 
western and opposite shore. 

And it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet 
come to them t 

And the sea was rising by reason of a great 
wind that, sweeping down through the mountain 
gorges, blew upon it, throwing its waters into vio- 
lent commotion ! 

When therefore they had rowed about five-and- 
twenty or thirty furlongs, they behold Jesus, who, 
from His mountain solitude, had seen them toiling 
in rowing, walking on the wave tops of the tem- 



Jesus WtiJJiiiiQ on 



to their aid in every emergency 
of life, His disciples went 



the Se€t. 



Jesus Walking on the Sea 



79 



pestuous sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat : 
and, though they had looked for His coming, be- 
ing wholly unprepared for the extraordinary method 
of His approach, and not being able to recognize 
Him in the dark, but supposing He was a spectre 
or phantom, they ivere afraid ! 

But, sympathizing with them in their distress, 
unwilling to protract their agony longer than neces- 
sary, assuring them that the figure they see walking 
on the deep is no spirit or spectre, no enemy or 
object of dread, but their own beloved Master, 
He saith unto them : " It is I; be not afraid ! " 

And recognizing His familiar voice, which pene- 
trated the clouds and the darkness, and made itself 
heard above the roaring of the wind and the raging 
of the sea, their fears being entirely removed, they 
-were willing therefore to receive Him into the 
boat : and straightway, the wind having ceased 
and the sea having become calm, so that the dis- 
ciples no longer found any difficulty in rowing, the 
boat was at the land whither they were going / 



The Synagogue Sermon* 



On the morrow, the day after the miraculous 
feeding of the five thousand, that part of the origi- 
nal multitude which, remaining 

Historical Intro- n • . , . c 

all night in the expectation of 

duct ion. ... . 

again being m the company of 
Jesus, stood on the other or northeastern side of the 
sea, saw that there was none other boat there, save 
one, and that Jesus entered not with His disciples 
into the boat, but that His disciples went azuay 
alone — howbeit there came boats from Tiberias 
nigh unto the place where they ate the bread afte?\ 
the Lord had given thanks : — when the multitude 
therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither His 
disciples, concluding that, escaping their notice, 
He must have crossed over during the night, and 
resolving to follow, they themselves got into the 
boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 

And when they found Him on the other or north- 
western side of the sea, deeming it unlikely that He 
had made the journey on foot, and unable to un- 
derstand how He could possibly have got to Caper- 
80 



The Work of Works 



81 



liaum, since He did not go in the boat with His 
disciples — the only boat that was there at the time, 
— ignorant of what had actually taken place ; and 
filled with surprise and curiosity they said unto 
Him : ' ' Rabbi, when earnest Thou hither ? 1 1 

Returning no answer to this trifling question, 
knowing that in their state of mind it would be of 
no use to tell them when He 

The IVork of -, j , . , 

had come, or how, but laying 
bare at a stroke their unworthy 
motives, and, in His most solemn and impressive 
manner, administering a keen and cutting rebuke 
to their carnal-mindedness, Jesus answered them 
and said : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye 
seek Me, not because ye saw signs, but, from a 
lower and more carnal motive still, because ye ate 
of the loaves, and, satisfied with food as animals 
with fodder, were filled / 

"Work not exclusively or excessively for the 
meat which, yielding only a temporary good, per- 
isheth, but, as the supreme object of your existence, 
for the meat, the spiritual food, which abideth unto 
eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto 
you : for Him the Father, even God, accrediting 
Him by numerous and intelligible signs, hath 
sealed / ' ' 



82 



The Incarnate Word 



Somewhat aroused and impressed, but still totally 
ignorant of the way of life, appearing to enter into 
the thought of Jesus, admitting in word, at least, 
the higher aim of work, but erroneously supposing 
that merit could attach to any work they could 
perform, so as thereby to establish a righteousness 
of their own, they said therefore unto Him : " What 
must we do that we may work the works of God, 
that is, the works God requireth as the ground of 
our salvation ? " 

Taking up their legal thought and turning it into 
an evangelical channel, dealing at once with the 
error and the truth in the question put to Him, re- 
ducing all works to be done to one single work in 
which all fragmentary and partial works are in- 
cluded, in a simple formula which containeth the 
complete solution of the relation between faith and 
works, Jesus answered and said unto them : " This 
is the work of God, the work that God requireth 
as the ground of your salvation, that ye believe on 
Him whom He hath sent ! ' ' 



The lowly condition in which Jesus appeared 
being, in the opinion of those whom He addressed, 
altogether out of keeping with 
The bi etui of ^ e c j a i m f Messiahship He made 

Life* 

for Himself, and not satisfied with 



The Bread of Life 



83 



any evidence that He had yet given them, but de- 
manding a specific authentication of it in His case, 
with an evident sneer or sarcasm in their question, 
they said therefore unto Him : < < What then doest 
Thou for a sign, that we may see in the miracle 
wrought unanswerable proof that Thou art the 
Messiah, and, seeing the miracle, may thus be able 
to believe Thee ? What workest Thou in justifica- 
tion of the claim Thou dost make for Thyself? 

" Our fathers ate the manna in the zuildemess 
as an evidence of the divine legation of Moses ; as 
it is ivritten, ' He gave them bread out of heaven to 
eat' Give us some such specific sign that Thou 
art the Messiah, and our allegiance is Thine ! " 

Replying to the argument of His auditors and 
interlocutors in which they made a disparaging 
comparison between Himself and Moses, between 
His miracle of feeding the five thousand and the 
feeding of Israel Avith manna, perceiving their con- 
fusion of idea, and giving an explanation which 
bringeth to light the opposition between His 
thought and theirs, between the manna to which 
they referred and the bread, the spiritual food, 
which He is now ready to give them, as if by the 
solemnity of His manner and the weight of His 
utterance to dispel their delusions, Jesus therefore 
said unto them : ' ' Verity, verity, I say unto you t 



84 The Incarnate Word 



It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of 
heaven to which ye refer, he being only the agent 
of God in supplying the manna, which, at best, 
bestowed only a temporary benefit; but My 
Father giveth you directly the True Bread out of 
Heaven, of which the manna was only a type. 

"For the Bread of God is thai which, divine 
in its origin, cometh down out of Heaven, and, un- 
like the manna, being permanent in its benefits and 
universal in its design, giveth life unto the world ! ' ' 

Without any clear conception of our Lord's 
meaning, but interpreting His words in accordance 
with their material hopes, like the woman of Sa- 
maria in regard to the water which Jesus offered 
her, and whose transcendent qualities He set forth 
in her hearing, impressed with the immense ad- 
vantages of such a daily supply of their temporal 
wants, in a half wishful, incredulous way, they said 
therefore unto Him : ' ' Lord, evermore give us 
this bread ! ' ' 

Perceiving the grossness and carnality of their 
thoughts, explaining that Himself in His char- 
acter and offices as Messiah is the food that 
endureth, and that faith in Him is the way to ob- 
tain it, dropping all further reserve and indirec- 
tion, and speaking of Himself in the first person, 
Jesus said unto them : "I am the Bread of Life ; 



Jesus 1 Labor Not in Vain 85 



he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that 
believeth on Me shall never thirst, the supply of 
spiritual nourishment being both plentiful and con- 
tinuous ! 



" But I am quite aware that your carnal expecta- 
tions concerning the Messiah, and your consequent 
unbelief in Me, will prevent you 

Salvation of the r A ■, 

from complying with these simple 

Elect Assured. . 

conditions : tor as I said unto 
you a moment ago, and now say unto you again, 
that ye have seen Me, accredited, as I am, by My 
words and works, My miracles and My teaching, 
and yet, in the face of all these signs, ye believe not ! 

"Yet, though ye believe not, I shall not labor 
in vain, as there will not be wanting, and that in 
large numbers, those who will believe Me ; for I 
labor in the assurance, that all that which the 
Father in the exercise of His sovereign grace and 
love giveth Me shall come unto Me ; and him that 
co?neth unto Me, irrespective of his previous charac- 
ter, condition, or nationality, / will in no wise 
cast out ; but, on the contrary, I will receive 
him gladly and with joy when he cometh ! 

"xAnd of this all may feel confident, for I am 
come down from Heaven, not to do Mine own will, 
but the will of Hun that sent Me / 



86 The Incarnate Word 



" And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that 
of all that mystical body of believers which He 
hath given Me as the reward of My mediatorial 
work / should lose nothing, but, guiding it safely 
through all the dangers of this earthly life, should 
raise it up to the blessedness of eternal happiness 
at the last day ! 

' ' For this is the will of My Father, that every 
one that, looking to Him by faith, beholdeth the 
Son, and believeth on Him as Messiah, should, as 
the result and outcome of such act, have eternal 
life ; and I, on My part, by way of making good 
My Father's purpose, will raise him up at the last 
day I" 

No longer able to control their feelings, taking 
vigorous exceptions to our Lord's assumption of 
such high prerogatives, and giv- 

Salvatioii is of . t ^ • 

ing vent to their angry dissent m 
unfavorable whispering that made 
itself heard throughout the building where they 
were, the official Jews therefore among His auditors 
murmured concerning Him, be 'cause, as they alleged, 
He said, " I am the Bread which came down out 
of Heaven." And, assigning as a reason for their 
indignant complaint His lowly, earthly origin, being 
either totally ignorant or entirely forgetful of His 



Salvation is of Grace 



87 



incarnation or Divine descent, with a tinge of con- 
temptuous surprise they said among themselves : 
"Is not this Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of 
Joseph, whose father and mother we knoia ? How 
then doth He now say, 1 1 am come down out of 
Heaven ' ? His claim is preposterous and not to be 
tolerated for a moment ! ' ' 

Aware of their contemptuous sayings and malig- 
nant whisperings and inconclusive reasonings con- 
cerning Him, declaring the utter incompetency of 
His critics in the premises, replying to their vain 
cavilings, Jesus answered and said unto them : 
"Murmur not among yourselves, taking exceptions 
to the claim of Messiahship I make for Myself. It 
is a needless waste of time and energy. I am 
neither surprised at it, nor discouraged by it. It 
is, in fact, only what I am prepared to expect. In- 
capable of spiritual discernment or action, your 
unbelief is due to your depraved moral nature, 
which ye have in common with all the children of 
men. 

"Ye cannot, as ye suppose, repent and believe 
at your own pleasure. 

" Faith is the gift of God, and no man can come 
to Me in the exercise of that grace, except the 
Father which sent Me, through the agencies of the 
gospel, draw him : and f on My part, as I have be- 



88 The Incarnate Word 



fore said, perfecting the work which the Father hath 
begun, will raise him up i?t the last day ! 

" Nor am I saying anything but what your own 
Scriptures teach, and what therefore ye yourselves 
ought to know ; for it is written in the prophets, 
' And they of the Messianic community shall all be 
taught of God.' Whence it is evident that your 
unbelief, the fact that ye do not come to Me, is due 
to this, that ye are not the subjects of such divine 
teaching ; for every one that hath heard from the 
Father the whisperings of His grace, and hath 
learned the lessons of His love, cometh unto Me ! 

" Not that any man hath seen the Father, save 
lie zuhich is from God, He hath seen the Father ! ' ' 

Returning now to the main thread of His dis- 
course which was interrupted by the murmuring of 
His auditors, speaking out now 

The True Bread. •> , i i • i 

much more clearly and plainly 
about Himself, dropping all reserve, and revealing 
Himself as the object of faith, openly and without 
figure, continuing His address, Jesus said unto 
them : ' i Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that 
believeth, as the result of that act, hath eternal 
life ! 

' ' I am the Bread of Life I 

' ' Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilder* 



Meat Indeed, Drink Indeed 89 



ness, and they died. This is the bread which 
cometh doiu?i out of Heaven, that a man may eat 
thereof, and not die ! 

" I am the Living Bread which came down out 
of Heaven : if any man eat of this Bread, he 
shall live forever f Yea, and to tell you all, that 
ye may have the paradox even to the end, the 
bread which I will give is My flesh, giving Myself 
as a sacrifice for the life of the world / ' ' 

Incapable of understanding such high spiritual 
teaching, not confining themselves to a whispered 
murmuring, as before, but break- 

The Soul's trite . . . , it, 

ing out into violent debate, 

Sustenance. 

reasoning and arguing among 
themselves in an angry and excited manner, some 
contending for the literal sense, others favoring a 
metaphorical interpretation of our Lord's words, 
others decrying the whole thing as too revolting 
and absurd for serious consideration, the Jews 
therefore strove one with another, saying with con- 
tempt in their question : " How can This Man, 
this Nazarene, give us His flesh to eat ? " 

Passing by their "How," as in the case of 
Nicodemus, without an explicit answer, and meet- 
ing the difficulty raised by their question by what 
is really a fact of experience, stating the great truth, 



90 



The Incarnate Word 



first in a negative and then in a positive form, with 
deepening solemnity, Jesus therefore said unto 
them: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except 
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His 
blood, not, of course, in any literal sense, but 
spiritually, appropriating by faith the benefits of His 
sacrifice for sin, ye have not life in yourselves ! 

" On the other hand, he that so eateth My flesh 
and drinketh My blood hath eternal life : and, re- 
peating what I have before said, perfecting his sal- 
vation, I will raise him up at the last day ! 

"For My flesh, spiritually regarded, is meat in- 
deed, and My blood is. drink indeed I 

" He that by faith eateth My flesh and drinketh 
My blood abide th in Me, and I in him ! 

" As the Living Father, even God, sent Me '> and 
I live because of the Father ; so he that thus eateth 
Me, he also shall live because of Me I 

" This is the Bread which came down out of 
Heaven, and such is its design and effect : not as 
the fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness, 
and died, not having received any spiritual benefit 
therefrom : he on the contrary, that eateth this 
Bread shall live forever ! ' 1 

These things said He in the synagogue, as He 
taught in Capernaum, 



The Offence of the Cross 91 



Many therefore even of His nominal and un- 
spiritual disciples, when they heard this, teaching 
so entirely at variance with ail 
T/ie ojfenve of ^ ideas they had been taught 

the Cross. . , r . . 

to associate with the Messiah, 
giving expression to their dissent, speaking one to 
another, said : " This is a hard saying, repugnant 
alike to reason and our traditional faith ; who can 
hear it?" 

But Jesus, now on His way out of the syn- 
agogue, knowing in Himself from symptoms of 
discontent that He noticed that His disciples mur- 
mured at this, said unto them : "Doth this doc- 
trine of vicarious sacrifice on My part, proving 
offensive to your natural heart, cause you to stumble 
in your allegiance to Me as Messiah ? What then 
if ye should see the Son of Man ascending where 
He was before, as He certainly will ? Would ye 
not find in this a still greater cause for stumbling? 
something more difficult yet to receive and believe ? 

" Howbeit My sayings are not to be understood 
in a gross and carnal or merely literal sense, but 
metaphorically, in a spiritual sense. It is the spirit 
that quickeneth ; the flesh profit eth nothing : the 
words that I have spoken unto you in their nature 
and purpose are spirit, and are life. 

" But there are some of you that, notwithstand- 



C)2 The Incarnate Word 



ing your profession of faith, believe not ; hence to 
such My words convey no intelligible meaning, 
and produce, no beneficial effect, because this hu- 
man condition is unfulfilled." 



Nor was d He deceived by the crowds that fol- 
lowed Him, as though they were all His loyal ad- 
herents ; for from His intimate 

Reason of Un- . A . . , 

acquaintance with human nature 

belief. 

Jesus knew from the beginning of 
His relations with them who they were that believed 
not, and who it was that should betray Him. 
And, in explanation of their unbelief, He said : 
" For this cause have I said unto you, that no 
man can co7ne unto Me, except it be given unto him 
of the Father. God hath not given you the grace 
of faith, therefore ye do not come unto Me in the 
exercise thereof. ' ' 

Our Lord's synagogue discourse and subsequent 
remarks had completely disenchanted and disillu- 
sioned the insincere and selfish oi 
Proving the t ] 10se w h followed Him, ani- 

Tivetvc. 

mated solely by a carnal Mes- 
sianic hope. Their feelings toward Him now un- 
derwent a great change, all their enthusiasm hav- 
ing died out ; for upon hearing the announcements 



Jesus or Nobody 



93 



contained in this dialogue or discourse, many of His 
disciples, returning to their homes in disappoint- 
ment and disgust, went back, and, refusing hence- 
forth to identify themselves in any way with His 
cause, walked no more with Him. 

Upon seeing this general desertion of His 
standard, and when it seemed for the time as 
though He would be entirely forsaken, with the 
view of testing their faith and loyalty, turning to 
the apostolic band, Jesus said therefore unto the 
Twelve : "Would ye also, should I now absolve 
you from further allegiance, go away ? " 

Ever the first to speak, voicing, as he supposed, 
the sentiment of all his colleagues, and constituting 
himself as their mouthpiece, making this noble con- 
fession, in a strong burst of feeling, Simon Peter 
answered Him, saying: " Lord to whom shall 
we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. 
And as for us, however it may be with others, we 
have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One 
of God!" 

Correcting the misapprehension of Peter, that 
orthodoxy in doctrine is a sufficient guarantee for 
moral steadfastness ; tearing off the veil that this 
profession, apparently unanimous, threw over the 
unbelief of one of their number, thereby showing to 
the false professor that He was not his dupe, and 



94 



The Incarnate Word 



to the others that He was not deceived ; startling 
the confident Peter and producing consternation 
and amazement among his fellow-apostles, address- 
ing Himself to them all, Jesus answered them, 
saying: "Did not I choose you, the Twelve, and 
one of you is disaffected to Me, an adversary, a 
devil ? ' ' 

Now He spoke of Judas the son of Simon 
Iscariot, for he it was that should betray Him, be- 
ing one of the Twelve / 



At the Feast of Tabernacles* 



And after these things, continuing His per- 
ipatetic course of itinerant evangelization, Jesus 
walked in Galilee : for He -would 

He fore the Feast. 7L • T j , 

not walk in Judea, because, since 
His last visit to Jerusalem over a year before, an 
account of which has already been given, regarding 
Him as a Sabbath-breaker and a blasphemer, the 
official Jews sought to kill Him. 

Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of Taber- 
nacles was at hand, and, notwithstanding the 
hostility of the authorities in the Holy City, Jesus 
resolved to go up thence to join in its celebration. 

Ignorant of His purpose, however, His brethren 
therefore, anxious that He should proclaim Him- 
self, if indeed He were the Christ, and seeing in 
this feast a suitable opportunity for so doing, aware 
that He had not been to Jerusalem for almost a 
year and a half, said unto Him : " Depart hence, 
and go into Judea, that, performing there these 
signs, Thy disciples also may behold Thy works, 
which Thou doest here in such profusion, and with 
95 



96 The Incarnate Word 



so little effect ; and if so be they be convinced of 
Thy Divine Legation, they will array themselves on 
Thy side and carry Thee to the throne. This is 
certainly the wise course to pursue, for no man, 
expecting public recognition, doeth anything in 
secret, as Thou art practically doing by confining 
Thyself to this remote and obscure province of 
Galilee, and himself seeketh to be known openly. 
If therefore Thou doest these things with the view 
of proving Thy Messiahship, change Thy course of 
procedure and, presenting Thyself in Jerusalem at 
the approaching feast, manifest Thyself to the 
whole Jewish world / ' ' 

For even His brethren at this time, six months 
before His death, remaining graceless and uncon- 
verted, did not believe on Him as the Messiah; 
but, eagerly desiring to have the question decided 
by competent authorities, they ventured to advise 
and even urge, when faith would have been con- 
tent to wait. 

Recognizing the correctness of the position of His 
brethren, that the Messianic question could not be 
decided in Galilee, but, unable to explain His 
reasons for not just then deferring to their wish, 
and not deeming the present an opportune time for 
going up to Jerusalem, and publicly manifesting 
Himself as Messiah, with calm and gentle dignity 



Jesus Bides His Time 



97 



Jesus therefore saith unto them : " My time is not 
yet come ; but, so far as any risks to your personal 
safety is concerned, your time is alway ready. 
The official world at Jerusalem cannot hate you, 
because ye are in entire sympathy with it ; but Me 
it hateth, because, being in complete antagonism 
to it, and witnessing against its corruptions and its 
hypocrisy / testify of it, that its works are evil. 
Go ye up therefore, when it suiteth you, unto the 
feast : I go not up yet unto this feast to publicly 
manifest Myself as Messiah, as ye desire and urge 
Me to do ; because My time for so doing is not yet 
fulfilled /" 

And having said these things, remaining where 
He was, He abode still in Galilee. But when His 
brethren were gone up to the 

Befot e Jesus f eas ^ f nen wen f He also Up, 1l0t 
Arrived. 

publicly, but, avoiding going 
hither in company with the numerous caravans 
which were at that time proceeding on their way to 
Jerusalem, lest a new movement of enthusiasm 
might manifest itself to take Him by force and 
make Him King, and without the possibility on His 
part of restraining it, as it were in secret, making 
the journey either entirely alone or with a very few 
only of His intimate associates. 



98 



The Incarnate Word 



Disappointed at not finding Him at the very 
opening of the great national celebration, though 
feeling morally certain that He would be there, the 
common people among the Jerusalem Jews there- 
fore sought Him at the feast, and half in ill-will 
and half in curiosity, making inquiry among the 
parties of Galilean pilgrims, said : " Where is He, 
the famous prophet wrfo created such an immense 
sensation when He was here a year or more ago, 
and of whom we have heard so much since ? 
Surely He is here. Why then doth He not show 
Himself?" 

And, as is always the case with every great in- 
novator or reformer, opinions being divided, there 
was much murmuring or subdued discussion 
among the multitudes concerning Him : some judg- 
ing by His words and acts, and divesting them- 
selves of all prejudice, said : " He is a good man ; " 
others regarding Him from a purely ecclesiastical 
point of view, out-and-out traditionalists, said : 16 Not 
so, but He is an impostor, and leadeth the multitude, 
ever ready to follow any demagogue, astray /" 

Howbeit no man among His defenders spake 
openly of Him for fear of the official Jews, who 
cherished the most violent prejudices respecting 
Him, and who only wanted a good opportunity 
to put Him to death. 



Jesus Replies to His Detractors 99 



Bitty upon the fourth day, when it was now the 
midst of the feast, having meanwhile in a quiet and 
unostentatious manner arrived in 
jesus nepiies to ^ ^loly City, when all hopes of 

His Detractors. 

His attending the festival had 
been given up, to the surprise of every one Jesus 
went boldly up into the Temple, and, taking up His 
position on the porch where the rabbis met their 
disciples, taught the multitude that, forsaking the 
scribes, soon gathered around Him. 

Having heard for themselves the bold intruder, 
amazed at the fearlessness and skill with which He 
expounded the Scriptures, aware that He had not 
studied in any of the theological institutions ap- 
proved by the authorities, or received instruction 
from any of their rabbis, the official Jews who 
were present therefore marvelled, and with the view 
of depreciating both Him and His teaching, con- 
fessing their ignorance of its true origin, but insinu- 
ating that He had come by His knowledge in some 
questionable way, in tones loud enough to be heard 
by all the bystanders, exclaimed, saying : "How 
knoweth This Man letters, having never learned ? " 

Instead of crushing Him with their poisoned 
interrogation and contemptuous declaration, how- 
ever, affording Him, on the other hand, the needed 
opportunity of setting forth the divine origin of 



100 



The Incarnate Word 



His doctrine, and of defending Himself against the 
accusations of moral disorder which they had 
made the basis of their designs against His life, 
addressing His detractors, Jesus therefore an- 
swered them, and said : "My teaching is not Mine, 
but His that sent Me / 

"If any man willeth to do His will — a test to 
which every one, if he so desire, may subject it — 
he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, 
or whether I speak from Myself ! 

" Moreover, he that speaketh from himself seeketh 
his own glory, but he that seeketh the glory of him 
that sent him, as I do that of My Father, the same 
is no impostor but a true man, and no unright- 
eousness or tendency to moral disorder, such as ye 
accuse Me of, is in him I 

" But how is it with you ? Did not Moses give 
you the law ? — that very law which, according to 
his directions and in keeping with time-honored 
custom, ye have this day been reading as a part of 
the ceremony in connection with the celebration 
of this feast — and yet, with all your respect for the 
great lawgiver, none of you doeth the law, knowing 
well that occasionally ye place yourselves above 
his precept. Why then seek ye to kill Me, seeing 
that I have thought that I might do as ye do, and 
with much more right even than you? " 



Sabbath Healing Defended 



101 



Not being aware of the designs of the rulers 
against the life of Jesus, interrupting Him, and 
charging Him with giving Himself up to gloomy 
ideas and suspicions without foundation — despond- 
ency, melancholia, and sombre thoughts being 
attributed to demoniacal possession — just as Jesus 
was about to explain His meaning, with brutal 
bluntness, the multitude answered Him, saying : 
' i Thou hast a devil ! who seeketh to kill Thee ? 1 ' 

Without noticing this coarse and vulgar inter- 
ruption, but simply taking up and continuing the 



Holy City, / did one work — one single act of 
mercy which seemed to contravene the sabbatic 
statute — andlo, scandalized, horror-struck thereat, 
ye all marvel ; crying out with offence and wishing 
for My death because of this work ; and that, not- 
withstanding the many acts of the same kind which 
ye all do in the case to which I now call your at- 
tention. 

"For this cause, namely, that he might have 
you understand that a positive enactment must give 
way before the needs of the human, that the rest 



Than a Meligions 



Humanity Ttlore 



Ceremonial. 



argument He had already be- 
gun, Jesus answered and said 
unto them ; ''About a year and 
a half ago, when here in the 



io2 The Incarnate Word 



of the Sabbath must be subordinated to the well- 
being of man, hath Moses, who gave you the 
fourth commandment, which forbiddeth, on its face, 
all work on the Sabbath, given you also circum- 
cision, which, notwithstanding the work it involv- 
eth, requireth that the rite shall be administered 
on the eighth day after the birth of the child, 
whether that day falleth on a Sabbath or not — not 
that it is of Moses, but, antedating the Sinai legis- 
lation by several hundred years, of the fathers, 
nevertheless, though only the result of a patriarchal 
tradition, Moses did not hesitate to assign to it, in 
the Israelitish life, a dignity before which the 
Sabbath itself gave way ; and accordingly, even 
on the Sabbath ye circumcise a ;;/tf//-child. And 
herein ye do well ; but in doing this ye allow that 
there are some works which may be done on the 
Sabbath, thereby yielding the very principle for 
which I contend, and in accordance with which I 
performed the work ye charge against Me as a 
crime worthy of death. Hence, Moses hath, in ad- 
vance, pleaded My cause before you, making you 
all jointly responsible for the crime with which you 
charge Me, and by himself proving to you- in this 
way that, when the good of man demandeth it, 
the rest of the Sabbath must be subordinated to the 
higher interest. 



Sabbath Healing Defended 103 



"If y then, a man-child receiveth circumcision 
on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses in relation 
thereto, may not be broken, although in contra- 
vention of the Sabbath law ; on what principle of 
consistency or justice, are ye wroth with Me, be- 
cause, without any work on My part, upon the 
highest grounds of humanity, in accordance with 
the original fundamental law of love and mercy, 
not wounding his body or doing a work of purifi- 
cation to but one of the two hundred and forty- 
eight members of his body, as in the case of cir- 
cumcision, but, communicating new life to every 
part of his completely paralyzed organism, I made 
a man every whit whole on the Sabbath ? thereby 
restoring him as a member of the Israelitish com- 
munity from fellowship with which, in conse- 
quence of his otherwise irremediable trouble, he 
was for w T ell nigh forty years cut off. My act 
of healing is surely no more inconsistent with 
the spirit of the Sabbath than is your work of cir- 
cumcision. 

"In fact, since the Sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the Sabbath, both deeds are right ; 
allowable not only, but in the highest degree com- 
mendable, as works of necessity and mercy, being 
in keeping with the supreme law of love. And this 
is the great lesson Moses meant to teach you, when, 



The Incarnate Word 



to the law of the Sabbath, he added that of cir- 
cumcision. 

"Judge not therefore superficially, by the ex- 
ternal aspect, as the matter first presenteth itself, 
confounding essentials with mere incidentals, the 
means with the end, according to appearance, but, 
going to the root of the matter, in the light of 
living and eternal principle, judge righteous judg- 
ment ! 1 1 

Struck with the great freedom and power in the 
preaching of Jesus, knowing the intentions of the 
rulers better than the multitude 

Jesus' Divine Ori- i i j r A i , • i 

who had come from the outside, 

gin and Mission. , . 

their conclusion favorable to 
Jesus being checked only by the recollection that 
the prevailing opinion, that the origin of the Mes- 
siah was to be entirely unknown, was irreconcilable 
with His Messianic dignity, some therefore of them 
of Jerusalem said : "Is not this He whom they 
seek to kill? And lo, He speaketh openly and 
fearlessly, and, allowing Him to go unchallenged, 
they say nothing unto Him ! Can It be that, hav- 
ing obtained some new light, the rulers Indeed now 
know that this Is the Christ? Howbelt, as to His 
parents and family, we know This Mait whence he 
Is : but when the Christ 'ometh, no o?ie knoweth 



Jesus No Impostor ios 



whence He is. The rulers therefore, however their 
change of attitude may be accounted for, cannot 
believe that this Jesus is the Christ." 

Aware of the partial knowledge of these Jeru- 
salemites and of the conclusion they drew from it, 
making their utterance the basis of a strong decla- 
ration as to His origin and mission, with great 
pointedness and severity showing that the condi- 
tions they claimed for Messiah were in reality ful- 
filled in Himself, repeating with a touch of irony 
their own assertion for the purpose of confuting it, 
Jesus therefore lifted up His voice and cried in 
the Temple, teaching and saying : " Ye both know 
Me, and know whence I am : so ye say, indeed, do 
ye ? but ye are mistaken ; for ye do not know Me, 
either as to My origin or My mission • and I am 
not, as ye think, an impostor, a mere adventurer, 
without other commission, but come of Myself : 
but, on the contrary, I have a divine commission, 
for He that sent Me is trite, that is, the True 
Sender, He who alone hath the power to givj 
divine missions, Whom ye know not. I knoiv 
Him, however ; because I am from Him, and He 
sent Me /" 

Detecting in these strong utterances an open 
claim on the part of Jesus to be received as the 



106 The Incarnate Word 



Messiah, the rulers were confirmed in their pur- 
pose to arrest Him ; they sought 
therefore for the means and op- 

Ordered. . . * _ 

portufnty to take Him, with the 
view, of course, of putting Him to death as a blas- 
phemer and an impostor : and yet, restrained by 
existing conditions, no man laid his hand on Him, 
because His hour, the time appointed for His 
death, was not yet come. 

But of the multitude, this hostile attitude of the 
rulers to the contrary notwithstanding, many be- 
lieved on Him ; and they said to one another : 
" When the Christ shall come, if indeed this be not 
He, will He do more signs than those which This 
Man hath done ? ' ' 

The Pharisees heard the multitudes murmuring 
these things concerning Him, which were worm- 
wood and gall to their jealous and affrighted souls • 
and, well knowing that His rise was their fall, the 
chief priests and the Pharisees, hastily issuing a 
warrant for His arrest, sent officers, instructing them 
on the first suitable opportunity, to take Him. 

Aware of this hostile movement on the part of 
the rulers, the knowledge of 

The Hitler's , . , , . . 

which awakening within Him a 
presentiment of His death, now 



Sarcasm of the Jews 107 

not very remote, being only six months distant, 
with that readiness which always marked Him, 
and with an undertone of sadness and tenderness 
in His voice, yet calmly confident, Jesus therefore 
said : " Yet a little while I am with you, and 
then, when My time is fulfilled and My work ac- 
complished, returning to Heaven, I go unto Him 
that sent Me. Then ye shall seek Me, and shall 
not find Me : and where I then am, by reason of 
your moral unfitness, your impenitence and un- 
belief, ye cannot come ! 1 1 

Incapable of attaching to our Lord's words any 
spiritual conception, ironically and with a chuckle, 
the official Jews therefore said among themselves : 
" Whither will This Man go that we shall not find 
Him ? Will He go unto the dispersion among the 
Greeks, and, playing the part of the Messiah 
among them, teach the Greeks ? Yet He is very 
perplexing, certainly. What is this word that He 
said, < Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me : 
and where I am ye cannot come 7 ? 1 1 



Now 011 the last day, the great day of the feast, 
applying to Himself one of the most striking Mes- 
sianic symbols among all those 

Jesus the Foun- i • i ,i • i i • , 

which their national history con- 

tain of Life. . J 

tamed, namely, the quenching 



io8 



The Incarnate Word 



of the thirst of the people in the wilderness by the 
water which came streaming forth from the smitten 
rock, departing from His usual sitting posture in 
teaching and assuming a more solemn attitude and 
a tone of voice more elevated than ordinary, Jesus 
stood and cried saying : " If any man thirst let 
him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth 
on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly, 
from his interior spiritual life, in demonstration of 
the nature and efficiency of his faith, in streams of 
holy influence, shall flow rivers of living water / " 
But this He spake of the Spirit, which they that 
believed on Him were to receive at Pentecost : for 
the Spirit was not yet given ; because Jesus was 
not yet glorified. 

Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard 
these words or discourses, and the manner in which 
they were uttered, being favor- 

Variotis Opinions , , , . 7 rm • 

ably impressed, said : " 1 his is 

of Jesus. 

of a truth the prophet like unto 
Moses, whom we have been taught to expect." 
Others, more advanced still, said : " This is the 
Christ ! " But some, raising the objection, which 
was not unnatural, regarding such a thing as im- 
possible and out of the question, said : " What, 
doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not 



The Nonsuch Orator 



109 



the Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the 
seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village 
where David was ? This new teacher and preacher, 
therefore, wonderful though He be, cannot be the 
promised Messiah." 

So there was a division in the multitude because 
of Him. And some of the more violent and ill- 
disposed among them, urging the officers to do 
their duty, would have taken Him forthwith : but, 
as before, no man laid hands on Him / 

The officers, therefore, owing to the temper of 
the multitude, finding no opportunity to take Him, 



ing an explanation of their failure, they said unto 
them : ' 6 Why did ye not bring Him ? ' ' 

With a candor that did credit to their manhood, 
assigning as the reason for their failure to arrest 
Jesus, His transcendent moral influence over the 
people, the officers answered them, saying : 
" Never man so spake ! " 

In their indignation and disgust at this excuse 
of the officers, full of pride and their own impor- 
tance, the Pharisees therefore answered them, say- 
ing : " Are ye also, hypnotized by the spell of this 



Disgusted Mier- 



urclis. 



came to the chief priests and 
Pharisees ; and, not seeing Jesus 
in their custody, angrily demand- 



I IO 



The Incarnate Word 



demagogue and arch-deceiver, led astray ? Hath 
any of the rulers, whom ye are bound to obey, be- 
lieved 071 Him, or of the Pharisees, whose opinions 
ye are bound to respect? But this multitude 
which knoweth not the law are accursed. Their 
opinion is worthless, and what they think of this 
Galilean is of no moment or value ! " 

Nicodemus — he that came to Him before, being 
one of them — pleading for justice and fair play in 
dealing with Jesus, saith unto them : "Doth our 
law judge a man, except it first hear from himself 
and know what he doeth ? We who know and are 
the guardians of the law, may not ourselves break 
it under the pretence of keeping it ! " 

Stung by this pointed interrogation, having noth- 
ing to urge against the justice of the principle, and 
substituting abuse for argument, in the language of 
rage, scorn, and contempt, they anstvered and said 
unto him : ' ' Art thou also of Galilee ? Hast 
thou, too, become a follower of the Nazarene? 
Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet /" 



The Woman Taken in Adultery 



And when the members of the Sanhedrim found 
that once again they had been ignominiously foiled 
and publicly defeated in their attempts to put Jesus 
at once to death, separating in a most bitter and 
angry frame of mind, boiling over with mortified 
pride and baulked malice, they went every man 
unto his own house : but, having no home to which 
to go, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, as He 
had often done before, and spent the night in the 
open air. 

And, returning to the city early in the morning, 
He came again without fear or hesitation into the 
Temple, and immediately all the people came unto 
Him ; and He sat down, and taught them. 

And the scribes and Pharisees, seeing in her sin 
a possible snare for the hated Galilean, bring a 
woman taken in adultery ; and having set her in 
the midst, with a hard cynicism, a graceless, piti- 
less, barbarous brutality, reciting her crime as 
glibly as though themselves were immaculate, with 
ironical deference, they say unto Him : "Master, 



I 12 



The Incarnate Word 



this woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very 
act. Nozu in the laiv Moses commanded us to 
stone such : what then say est Thou of her ? ' ' 

And this they said, not from any high moral 
considerations, but to gratify a calculating malice, 
in their intense hatred of Jesus, tempting Him, 
that they might have whereof to accuse Him. For 
if He answered: " Moses is right; stone her by 
all means ! " they would have gone to Pilate and 
accused Him of infringing on the rights of the 
Roman authority, which had reserved to itself the 
power of the sword there, as in all conquered 
countries. If, on the other hand, He answered : 
" Do not stone her ! " they would have decried 
Him before the people as the foe of Moses and the 
friend of immorality, and would even have accused 
Him before the Sanhedrim as a false Messiah : for 
the Messiah must maintain or restore the sovereignty 
of the law. And such was the dilemma on either 
horn of which His enemies expected Him to impale 
Himself. 

But, penetrating their malicious motives, per- 
ceiving that the case, as they presented it, did not 
come within His jurisdiction, steadily refusing to 
have anything whatever directly to do with what 
was purely judicial, leaving all such matters to 
those who were invested with official functions, and 



The Woman Taken in Adultery 1 1 3 



whose duty it was to attend to them, declining 
therefore to entertain, much less to answer, their 
insidious question, giving expression to His senti- 
ments in an action which was at once symbolical 
and significant, in utter disgust at the whole pro- 
cedure, turning from His sanctimonious interroga- 
tors, Jesus stooped down, and with His finger 
wrote 07t the ground without seeming to have 
either seen or heard ! 

But when Jesus saw that they looked on His si- 
lence as a sign of His discomfiture and of their 
own triumph, and that, becoming more bold and 
confident, determined to have an answer, they con- 
tinued asking Him, bringing back the question 
from the judicial domain, where His enemies were 
placing it, to the moral ground, beyond which He 
did not for a moment dream of extending His au- 
thority, from the forum of law to that of con- 
science, thus raising the question of the woman's 
offence from a legal to a spiritual level, disarming 
her improvised judges, without, however, in the 
least infringing on the ordinance of Moses, neither 
acquitting nor condemning her, neither palliating 
nor excusing her crime, in the majesty of absolute 
innocence, He lifted up Himself, and, with the 
calmness and serenity of holy rectitude, turning 
His eye full upon them, before the penetrating 



H4 The Incarnate Word 



glance of which, recoiling at their own baseness, 
His sanctimonious enemies quailed, with that con- 
summate wisdom and skill which marked all His 
answers to those who sought to catch Him 'in His 
talk, said unto them: "I decline to pronounce 
sentence on this woman, because I am not the 
judge. Ye yourselves know as well as I do what 
the law in such cases is, as ye have shown by your 
reference to the Mosaic precept. Now in view of 
that law which ye profess so much to honor, what- 
ever this woman may deserve, are ye the people to 
find fault with her and seek to condemn her? 
According to this same law, ye are well aware that 
the witnesses must be the executioners also. He, 
therefore, that, innocent of all offence against the 
seventh commandment, is without sin among you, 
let him first cast a stone at her ! ' ' 

And not wishing to add to their confusion or to 
interfere with the operation of the truth upon their 
hearts, as an indication of His unwillingness to say 
more, resuming His former attitude, again He 
stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the 
ground I 

If the scribes and Pharisees had been sincere in 
their indignation against the accused woman, now 
was the time to lead her to the officially constituted 
judge. It was not the evil, however, that they 



The Woman Taken in Adultery 115 



were set against : it was Jesus Himself. Recog- 
nizing the fact that their plot had failed not only, 
but that the tables were fairly turned upon them 
and that they were themselves condemned, taking 
the only course which remained for them, that of 
withdrawing, thereby making the tacit avowal of 
the odious purpose which had brought them hither, 
they, when they heard it, after a moment's profound 
silence, leaving the culprit where they had set her 
in the midst, abashed and crestfallen, went out one 
by one, beginning from the eldest, that is, the most 
venerable representative of public morality among 
the accusers, and who had taken his place at the 
head of the company, even unto the last / and 
Jesus was left alone, and the woman, where she 
was, in the midst of the assembled multitude ! 

And after the woman's accusers had all gone, re- 
lieved of their offensive presence, Jesus lifted up 
Himself, and for the satisfaction of the crowd that 
stood around, letting them see from the question 
and answer that the case had fallen to the ground, 
no evidence having been offered, no accuser having 
appeared, no sentence being pronounced, since 
none was needed, said unto her : " Woman, where 
are they ? Did no man condemn thee ? " 

And she, being mercifully spared the necessity of 
pleading as to her guilt or innocence, with perfect 



n6 



The Incarnate Word 



truthfulness, yet not criminating herself, with deep 
emotion and bowed head, giving the only answer 
her lips had power to frame, replying to his in- 
quiries, said : "No man, Lord /" 

And with mingled kindness and perfect wisdom, 
taking for granted the woman's guilt, but leaving 
her an opportunity to return to virtue, and keeping 
entirely within His own spiritual sphere, Jesus said 
to her : "Neither do I condemn thee, for it is not 
My office ; go thy way, therefore ; from henceforth 
sin no more, as thou hast only escaped the legal 
penalty at this time from lack of evidence to estab- 
lish thy guilt ! " 



Treasury Teaching. 



Again, therefore, resuming His teaching after the 
excitement incident to the case of the adulterous 
woman had subsided, applying 
jexus the Light of to Himself the symbol of the 

the World. _ M1 , . . . . _ _ 

nery pillar by which the fathers 
had been guided in their wanderings in the wilder- 
ness, even as the day previous He had the image 
of the smitten rock, whence during the exodus they 
had obtained the miraculous supply of water, using 
language which, coming from any other lips than 
His, would be regarded as but the raving of a 
maniac, or the idle vaporing of a mountebank — 
so monstrous its assumptions and amazing the vanity 
of its pretensions — yet without the slightest ap- 
parent consciousness of the superhuman claims He 
was making for Himself, maintaining indeed all the 
while a most peculiar modesty, producing on un- 
prejudiced minds no conviction more distinct than 
that of intense lowliness and humility, Jesus spake 
unto them, saying : "I am the light of the world : 
117 



1 1 8 



The Incarnate Word 



he that followeth Me shall ?iot walk in darkness, 
but shall have the light of life ! ' ' 

The Pharisees therefore, astounded at the dec- 
laration of Jesus concerning Himself, with the view 
of breaking its force and depreciating Him, op- 
posing their judgment to his assertion, with a bit- 
terness rendered all the deeper by their previous 
failure to entrap Him, accusing Him of self-glori- 
fication and therefore as being unworthy of confi- 
dence, said unto Him : " Thou bear est witness of 
Thyself, which, according to our law, no man is 
competent to do : Thy witness, therefore, being un- 
supported by other testimony, is not, either in point 
of fact or formal validity, true ! " 

With that unchangeably clear and transparent 
consciousness which He hath of Himself, pruning 
none of His apparent extravagan- 

Conwetencv of ^ abat j ng nailg h t of His pre- 
•Testis as a Wit- . rr • ,1 

vious pretensions, affirming the 

mess to Himself. 

essential completeness of His 
self-evidence, and denying that they possessed that 
equality of knowledge on which they presumed to 
rely, with that calm dignity which bore the stamp 
of truth, Jesus answered and said unto them : 
' 1 Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness, 
both in point of fact and formal validity, is true ; 



Jesus Witness to Himself 119 

for, as to My origin and mission, / knoiv whence 
I come, and, as to My final destiny, whither I go ; 
but, ignorant of both, ye know not whence 1 come, 
or whither I go ! 

''Basing your conclusions respecting Me on in- 
sufficient data, thinking of Me as one altogether 
like yourselves, partially, superficially, without a 
complete knowledge of all the facts in the case, and 
according to appearance, ye judge after the flesh ; 
in My official capacity, as Messiah, I judge no man, 
certainly not after the manner ye do Me. Yea, and 
if I judge, being based on a complete knowledge 
of all the facts, and therefore worthy of faith, My 
judgment is true ; for I am not alone in rendering 
such judgment, but I and the Father that sent Me ! 

" Yea and in your law it is written that the wit- 
ness of two men is true, that is, it requireth the 
witness of two men to render any testimony valid 
and worthy of belief. Being an exception to the 
rule, however, / am He that beareth witness of 
Myself, and the Father that sent Me, in a variety 
of ways, beareth 7vitness of Me ; so that in the 
judgments which I pronounce on the world, as well 
as in the testimonies I bear to Myself, the rule of 
law rendering testimony valid and worthy of cre- 
dence is fully complied with ; for the Father joineth 
His witness to My own ! " 



120 The Incarnate Word 



Pretending not to understand His reference, nor 
regarding an absent or unseen witness as sufficient 
to meet the requirement of the code, not making 
the inquiry seriously, with any real desire to know, 
but sneeringly and sarcastically, looking round in 
contempt, as if scornfully expecting to see a human 
person step forth to testify to Jesus, they said there- 
fore unto Him : " Where is Thy Father ? If it 
be of God Thou art speaking, let Him make Him- 
self heard ; if it be of some one else, let him show 
himself! " 

Perceiving that, owing to their spiritual blindness 
and unbelief, it was a moral impossibility to satisfy 
their demand, with great calmness and dignity, 
charging them with ignorance as respects funda- 
mental theological questions, Jesus answered 
them, saying: " Ye know neither Me nor My 
Father : if ye knew. Me, ye would know My 
Father also, both as regardeth who He is, and 
where He is ! " 

Notwithstanding their great gravity, these words 
spake He in the Treasury, as He taught in the 
Temple, right under the eyes, as it were, and within 
earshot of the Sanhedrim itself : and no man of the 
Temple police, who were the officers of the San- 
hedrim, took Him : because, as has been before said, 
His hour was not yet come ! 



Unregenerate Jews 



121 



With the view to shame and terrify the Jews, and 
to show them that His death would not be effected 



had said before, but now with a more distinct and 
tragic warning, and in grave and sorrowful tone ; 
' 'My mission on earth will soon be completed, and 
I go away to Him that sent Me, and, having dis- 
covered too late that I am the Messiah ye should 
have received, ye shall seek Me ; and with hearts 
in utter estrangement from God, unrepentant and 
unbelieving ye shall die in your sin : and, as a con- 
sequence of your moral condition, whither 1 'go, 
ye cannot conie / " 

Instead, however, of being sobered by our 
Lord's declaration, in scornful contempt of such an 
assumption of superiority, turning His words into 
ridicule, the Jews therefore said, with a chuckle, if 
not with a loud guffaw : ' i Will He kill Himself, 
that He saith, i Whither I go, ye cannot come 1 ? " 

And without noticing their coarse insulting jest, 
and meeting their taunts seriously, in explanation of 
the impassable gulf between themselves and Him 
of which He spake, calmly and with surpassing 
dignity, He said unto them : "Ye are from be- 
neath.; I am from above ; ye are of this world ; I 



Unbelief the 
Danuiing Sin, 



by their violence, but by His own 
voluntary submission, He said 
therefore again unto them, as He 



122 The Incarnate Word 

am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, 
that ye shall die in your sins : for except, receiving 
Me as the Messiah, ye believe that I am He, ye 
shall die in your sins ! ' ■ 

Refusing to recognize their Messiah in one so 
lowly as Jesus, yet fully satisfied that He was no 
ordinary person, not knowing 

The Cross the , A A . r r\ i • • 

what to make of One claiming 

Reveulev of Jfesus. . 

such high prerogatives, and 
very desirous that He should openly and frankly 
declare Himself, in their perplexity, they said 
therefore unto Him : ( ' Who art Thou ? ' ' 

Desiring adherents attached to Him by moral 
conviction alone, and knowing that a candid ex- 
amination of the witness He had all along borne to 
Himself in speech and action was sufficient for the 
discovery of His origin and mission, resolved not 
to declare Himself formally and in terms as the 
Messiah, in answer to their question, "Who art 
thou ? ' ' Jesus said unto them : 4 ' Even that which 
I have also spoken unto you from the beginning, 
neither more nor less. Fathom therefore My 
speech and ye will at once discover both My origin 
and mission, who I am and whence I come, with- 
out the need of any specific declaration on My 
part ! 



The Cross a Credential 



' ' I have many things to speak and to judge con- 
cerning you, the utterance of which, I am well 
aware, will but serve to widen the breach between 
Myself and you, nevertheless fidelity to My 
mission demandeth that they be spoken : howbeit 
He that sent Me is true ; and, as His Servant, 
the things which I heard from Him, these, without 
excess or defect, speak I unto the world /" 

They perceived not, however, that, in so saying, 
He spake to them of the Father. 

Seeing their bewilderment and mental obtuse - 
ness, opposing to their want of intelligence and 
spiritual perception the announcement of the day 
when the full light will come among them respect- 
ing His mission, after the great national crime 
which they are on the point of committing shall 
have taken place, speaking enigmatically and with 
the reserve which prudence dictated, with calm 
dignity and supreme majesty, Jesus therefore 
said : " When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, 
then shall ye know that I a?n He, even the 
Messiah, besides whom there is no other, and that 
I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught 
Me, I speak these things ! 

' ' And He that sent Me is with Me ; He hath 
not left Me alone : for I do always the things that 
are pleasing to Him / ' ' 



\24 The Incarnate Word 



As He spake these things many being intellec- 
tually convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, be- 
lieved on Him. 

Freedom by the T -, , r . 

Instead, however, of treating 

Tvntli. 

these new believers as converts, 
which we have no reason to think they were, putting 
them immediately to the test by addressing to them 
a promise, which, not withstanding its greatness, 
presenteth a profoundly humiliating side, in the 
way both of warning and encouragement, Jesus 
therefore said to those Jews which had believed 
Him: "If, continuing steadfast in the doctrines 
I teach you, ye abide in My word, then are ye 
truly My disciples ; and, not simply in a mere 
intellectual or speculative way, but as a real, liv- 
ing, personal experience ye shall knoiv the truth 
about God and Myself and yourselves, and the truth, 
enlightening your minds and breaking the dominion 
of sin in your hearts, thus effecting the true 
Messianic deliverance, shall make you both in- 
tellectually and spiritually free /" 

Fully justifying our Lord's want of faith in their 
faith, knowing no other servitude than civil or 
personal slavery, protesting that while promising 
them liberty Jesus was in reality making them 
slaves, changing the most magnificent promise into 
an insult, their fierce national pride bursting in- 



Spiritual Emancipation 125 



stantly into a blaze, in the language of excitement 
they answered unto Him: " We be Abrahams 
seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any 
man, how sayest Thou, then, ' Ye shall be made 
free' ?" 

Showing these new "additions" to the list of 
those who "professed" faith in Him, what kind 
of freedom He meant, by showing the kind of 
slavery from which He wished them to be deliv- 
ered, with great earnestness and solemnity, Jesus 
answered them saying; "Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, Every one that, as a habit of life, committeth 
sin is the bondservant or slave of sin. And the 
bondservant, as Hagar and Ishmael, abideth not in 
the house forever, but is subject to eviction or dis- 
charge at any time: but, on the contrary, the son, 
as Isaac, abideth forever. If therefore the Son 
shall make you free, thereby making you partakers 
of the true filial spirit, becoming possessed of a 
liberty worthy the name, ye shall be free indeed ; 
for being thereby lifted to the position of sons, ye 
shall abide in God's favor here, and dwell in His 
house hereafter forever ! 

" I know, indeed, that, according to the flesh, ye 
are Abraham's seed ; yet, showing how utterly un- 
like your great ancestor ye are in spirit, ye seek to 



126 



The Incarnate Word 



kill Me, because, being a spiritual and not a polit- 
ical Messiah, My word hath 

Moral jrnlikeness / • 1 , • 

not free course in you, but is 

Between the ,leivs , , , . . 

checked and retarded in its op- 

r«ijff JestiSn . 1 

erations by your carnal prepos- 
sessions and national pride. Ye and I belong to 
two entirely different families. / speak the things 
which I have seen as the result of communion with 
My Father ; and ye also, animated by a principle 
the direct opposite of that by which My conduct is 
influenced, with a tragical consistence do the things 
which ye heard from your father ! ' 1 

Resenting what they supposed to be something- 
disrespectful to the father of their race, affirming 
more energetically and with a feeling of wounded 
pride their allegiance to the patriarch, speaking 
laconically, their passion giving conciseness to their 
utterance, they answered and said unto Him : 
i i Our father is Abraham / ' ' 

By way of pointing out to them that it was quite 
possible for them to be Abraham's seed according 
to the flesh, and yet not his children according to 
the spirit, Jesus saith unto them; " If ye were 
Abraham's children in the highest and best sense,. 
ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye 
seek to kill Me, a Man that told you the truth, 
which I heard from God : this did not Abraham : 



Sons of Satan 



127 



ye do the works of your father ; as I have already 
said ! " 

Entering into our Lord's thought, and claiming 
that their spiritual descent is as pure and as high 
as their historical descent, repelling with much 
warmth of feeling the implication contained in the 
words of Jesus, they said unto Him: "We were 
not born of fornication : we have one father, even 
God!" 

In replying to this boast in which, while rising 
with Him to the moral point of view, they could 
not rid themselves altogether of their idea of phys- 
ical sonship, pursuing the same method as He had 
employed to deny their patriarchal filiation, laying 
down a moral fact against which their claim is 
shattered, showing them that national sonship and 
covenant sonship without spiritual sonship are noth- 
ing worth, Jesus said unto them : "If God were 
your father, ye would love Me : for I came forth 
and am come from God ; for neither have I come 
of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do ye not under- 
stand My speech ? even because, through your 
sheer unwillingness to receive it, ye cannot hear 
My word ! 

"So far therefore from either Abraham or God 
being your spiritual progenitor, ye are of your fa- 
ther the Devil, and the lusts of your father it is 



128 The Incarnate Word 



your will to do. He is a murderer from the be- 
ginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is 
no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he 
speak eth of his own : for he is a liar, and the fa- 
ther thereof 7 

" What ordinarily causeth a man to be believed 
is the fact that he speaketh the truth. My experi- 
ence with you, however, is the direct opposite of 
this. If I had spoken falsehood, ye wotrld have 
recognized that which is kindred to yourselves; but 
because I say the truth, ye believe Me not. Only 
those who are of the truth, recognize the truth 
when it is spoken. 

"Now, falsehood in action is sin. Falsehood 
within must show itself. From words therefore I 
appeal to acts. Which of you 

JTesics' Challenge • ,. , i i 

then, pointing to any moral ob- 

to th e J etvs. . 

liquity or inconsistency on My 
part, convicteth Me of sin ? 

"I pause so as to give opportunity to whoever 
might wish to accuse Me to be heard. Doth no 
one take up the challenge ? None ? Ye acknowl- 
edge then that ye cannot lay any offence against 
God or His holy law to My charge. Your efforts 
to do so heretofore hath proved signal failures. 
.- If, therefore, as a person altogether worthy of 



Cause of Unbelief 



129 



credence, / say truth, why do ye not believe Me ? 
Wherefore this inconsistency in your conduct 
toward Me ? Again I pause that ye may have op- 
portunity to make such defence of your conduct 
toward Me as ye are able. Are ye all silent? 
Hath no one any explanation to give? If not, 
then I will furnish it Myself. Ye are not of God : 
herein is the true reason of your unbelief toward 
Me. He that is of God heareth the words of 
God : for this cause ye hear them not, because ye 
are not of God ! ' ' 

Thrown into a very paroxysm of rage at what 
seemed to them the unpatriotic words of Jesus, un- 
able to account for such charges as He had 
brought against them on any other supposition than 
that of demoniacal possession, the madness of in- 
sanity, resorting to the last weapons of defeated 
disputants — personal abuse, senseless invective, and 
calling of names — the Jeivs answered and said unto 
Him : 1 ' Say we not zvell that Thou art a Samari- 
tan, a bitter foe of our nationality, and hast a 
devil ? Thou art as wicked as Thou art foolish ! " 

Setting us an example that we might follow 
in His steps — when He was reviled, He reviled 
not again— to the insult of His enemies opposing a 
simple denial, and for their false explanation sub- 
stituting the true one, with mild dignity rebutting 



150 



The Incarnate Word 



their slanderous accusations, Jesus answered them, 
saying: " / am not the victim of demoniacal pos- 
session and have not a devil ; but, on the contrary, 
/ honor My Father, and, unable to see the Father 
in the Son, ye in your blindness dishonor Me. But 
this doth not affect Me since, as the true Messenger 
of Heaven, / seek not Mine own glory, but the 
glory of Him that sent Me : there is One, however, 
that, solicitous of My glory, seeketh it, and, visit- 
ing with His displeasure My calumniators, judgeth. 
It is God, whose Son and Servant I am, that look- 
eth to this : to Him therefore I commit Myself and 
the care of My glory ! " 

Making to all who really believed in Him for 
their encouragement this glorious promise, Jesus, 



in the course on which he hath entered, keep My 
word, he shall never taste death / ' ■ 

Astounded by such an unheard of declaration, 
without any proper comprehension of its real mean- 
ing, seeing in it only the language of a frantical 
enthusiast, the victim of demoniacal possession, 
being, as it seemed to them, so manifestly COIltra- 



JLrfsf Testimonies 



of Jesus to 



Mi in self. 



continuing His address, in His 
most solemn and impressive man- 
ner, said : " Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, If a man, persevering 



Worthless Worship 



dictory of all experience, and therefore so obviously 
and flagrantly false, in exclamation of indignant 
amazement, the Jews said unto Him : " If we have 
had hitherto any doubt about Thy demoniacal pos- 
session, the last vestige of it hath been removed by 
this astonishing declaration of Thine, so that now 
we know that Thou hast a devil. Abraham is 
dead and the prophets ; and yet Thou say est, 6 If a 
man keep My word, he shall never taste of death ! ' 
Art Thou greater than oicr father Abraham, which 
is dead? And the prophets also which are dead : 
whom makes t Thou Thyself?'' 1 

Refuting this charge of arrogance or self-glorifi- 
cation which the Jews brought against Him, and 
prefacing His answer as to the relative dignity of 
Abraham and Himself by a revelation of the 
principle in obedience to which the reply is given, 
Jesus answered : "If I glorify Myself, My glory 
is nothing : it is My Father that glorifieth Me ; of 
whom ye say, that, professing to be His worship- 
pers, He is your God ; and yet, sad to say, ye 
have not known Him : but I know Him : and if 
I should say, ' I know Him not, ' / shall be like 
unto you, a liar : but I know Him, and keep 
His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to 
see My Messianic day ; and, exulting as if it 
were even then present to him, by faith he saw 



1^2 The Incarnate Word 



it, and, delighted with the glorious prospect, he 
was glad ! ' ' 

Persisting in putting a literal sense upon His 
Avords, and so misquoting His utterance as to com- 
pletely misrepresent the thought, treating His dec- 
laration as either absurd or blasphemous, in the 
language of indignant surprise, the Jews therefore 
said unto Him : i 1 Thou art not yet fifty years old, 
and hast Thou seen Abraham, a man who lived 
and died two thousand years ago? " 

In replying to this objection of the Jews, rising 
to the highest affirmation He had uttered with ref- 
erence to Himself, that of His divine preexistence, 
prefacing this His final answer, which followeth as 
a natural climax to what He had said before, with 
those words of elevated solemnity which serve to 
fix attention upon its substance, Jesus said unto 
them : " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before 
Abraham was I am ! ' ' 

Roused by this last declaration of Jesus to an 
uncontrollable pitch of rage, seeing only blasphemy 
in His utterance, in a burst of impetuous fury they 
took up stones therefore to east at Him ; but Jesus 
hid Himself, and went out of the Temple / 



The Man Bom Blind Healed 



And it came to pass, a short time after this out- 
burst in the Temple, that, as He passed by, He 
saw sitting at one of the temple 
a. speculative Qr Q ^ g ates ^ begging, a man 

Question and a , TT . i l z./- j 

who, He was told, was blind 

Practical Answer. 

from his birth. And, accus- 
tomed to look upon suffering as a consequence of 
sin, but being unable to determine who the of- 
fender was in this case, referring the question to 
Jesus for solution, His disciples asked Him, say- 
ing : " Rabbi, who did sin, this man or his par- 
ents that he should be born blind ? ' ' 

Correcting the mistaken notion of His disciples, 
that special calamities were certain evidences of 
some particular sin, while not denying the exist- 
ence of sin both in this unfortunate blind man and 
his parents, teaching them that they should direct 
their attention, not to the mysterious cause of the 
suffering, but to the end for which God permitteth 
it, and the salutary effects which we can derive 
from it, thus giving to His reply a practical turn, 
Jesus answered them, saying: " Neither did this 
*33 



The Incarnate Word 



man sin, nor his parents, one or other of which, 
ye think, must have been guilty of some particular 
transgression, that he should thus be born blind : 
but this man was born blind with a purpose, 
namely, that, by helping him temporally and spirit- 
ually, the tvorks of God should be manifest in him : 
thereby making evil itself an occasion of good. 

" In rendering such service to the afflicted, we 
must work the works of Him that sent Me, em- 
bracing both time and opportunity while it is day : 
for the night cometh when, life being past, no man 
can work. When, that is, as long as, I am in the 
world, by embracing every opportunity to do good, 
/ am the light of the world ! ' ' 

When He had thus spoken, in application of the 
principle He had just laid down, He spat on the 
ground, and made clay of the 
Hon the Mu acie spiftfe an rf anointed the eyes of 

lVas Wrought. 1 J 

the blind man with the clay, and 
said unto him : " Go, wash thine eyes in the pool 
of Siloam— which is, by interpretation, Sent/ 11 

Having explained to the blind man that His pur- 
pose in what He had done, and in the prescription 
given, was to open His eyes, not stumbling at the 
simple though singular command, but in prompt 
obedience thereto, nothing doubting, he went away 



A Strange -Prescription 



*35 



therefore, and, doing as directed, washed, and, as 
the result of his obedience, came seeing / 

The neighbors therefore, and they which saw 
him aforetime, that he was a beggar, with whose 
appearance they were familiar, yet, his opened eyes 
having altered his looks, in doubt as to his identity, 
said: "Is not this he that sat and begged?" 
Others in positive recognition said : " It is he / " 
Others, struck with his marked resemblance to the 
man they had known as a beggar, but failing to rec- 
ognize in him the erstwhile mendicant, said : " No ; 
he is not the blind man, but he is like him / " 

Being interrogated as to his identity, however, 
putting the matter beyond all doubt or question, 
he said : "I am he ! ' ' 

Amazed at the discovery, they said therefore 
unto him : " How then were thine eyes opened ? " 

Giving to those who put to him the question a sim- 
ple, straightforward account of the marvellous cure 
that had been wrought upon him, he answered : ' ' The 
man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed 
mine eyes, and said unto me : ' Go to Siloam and 
wash 1 : so I went away and, doing as directed, 
washed, and, as a consequence, I received sight /" 

And, not with a desire to see the worker of so 
mighty a miracle, which would have been quite 
natural, but with hostile intent, with the view of 



1 5 6 



The Incarnate Word 



provoking inquiry as to the legality of the proce- 
dure, to the recital of which they had just listened, 
in order to give the information to the authorities, 
they said unto him : " Where is He ? " 

Jesus having in the meanwhile withdrawn from 
the place, unable to give his questioners the in- 
formation they desired, he saith unto them: "/ 
know not where He is ! " 

In their zeal for rabbinism, with the view of hav- 



isees him that aforetime was blind. 

Now the conduct of these men is explicable from 
the fact, that // was the Sabbath on the day when 
Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. 

Not content with a report at secondhand, but 
wishing to hear with their own ears and from the 
man's own lips the dreadful truth, directing their 
inquiry, not as to the fact, but the manner of the 
cure, as those who had brought him hither had 
done, thinking altogether more of the technical 
violation of a rabbinical rule, than the great work 
of mercy that had been performed on the man, 
again therefore the Pharisees also asked him how 
he received his sight. 



t Jes us Held to be a 



Sabbath, Breaker. 



ing the matter of his cure in- 
vestigated by the proper au- 
thorities, they bring to the Phar- 



For and Against Jesus 



1.37 



And, already penetrating their malevolent design, 
observing that the fact of his cure seemed to them 
to be a matter of no consequence, with ill-con- 
cealed impatience, if not with contempt, condens- 
ing the facts into the briefest possible compass, in 
the fewest possible words, curtly, abruptly he said 
unto them : " He put clay upon mine eyes, and I 
washed, and do see ! ' ' 

Regarding the manner in which the man's eyes 
had been opened as a violation of their rabbinical 
rules respecting the Sabbath, some therefore of the 
Pharisees, denying to Jesus any divine mission, 
and giving it as their opinion, said : " This Man 
is not from God, because, as a transgressor of our 
ordinance relating to its observance, which forbid- 
deth all such work as, in the effecting of this cure, He 
is said to have done, He keepeth not the Sabbath ! " 
But others in the council, with better logic said : 
*' How can a man that is a sinner do such signs ? " 

And there was a division among them. 

Unable to agree among themselves as to the 
character of Jesus, with the view of wresting from 
him a word which may furnish a pretext for sus- 
pecting his veracity, they say therefore unto the 
erstwhile blind man again : " What say est thou of 
Him, in that He opened thine eyes ? " 

And reasoning rightly, that a man able to per- 



i. 3 8 



The Incarnate Word 



form such a miracle as that of which he himself 
was the subject, could not be a sinner, a man with- 
out principles, a violator of the Sabbath, a publican, 
but the bearer of a divine commission, fearlessly 
and promptly giving his opinion of Jesus, he said : 
"He is a Prophet /" 

Unable to resist or gainsay the logic of this rea- 
soning, the unbelieving and more hostile ones 
among the Jews therefore, sus- 

The lit i ml Man's _ n i t 

pecting a collusion between Je- 

Parents Identify , , . 

sus and the blind man, affect- 

Their Son. 

ing to doubt the reality of the 
miracle, did not believe concerning him, that he had 
been blind, and had received his sight, until they 
called the parents of him that had received his sight, 
and asked them, saying: "Is this your son, who 
ye say, was born blind? how then doth he noiv 
see? " 

Prompt and positive as to the indentilication of 
their son, but diplomatically prudent, as became 
them, as to how the change in his physical condi- 
tion was affected, in a serio- comical vein, referring 
them to himself as a competent and legal witness, 
his parents answered and said : " We knoiv that 
this is onr son, and that he was born blind : but 
hoiv he now seeth, we know not ; or who opened 



Official Intimidation 139 



his eyes we know not : ask him ; he is of age ; he 
shall speak for himself 7 " 

These things said his parents, because they 
feared the official Jews : for the Jews had agreed 
already that if any man should confess Him to be 
Christ, imposing upon him the sentence of excom- 
munication with all its horrors, he should be put out 
of the synagogue. Therefore saith his parents : 
' ' He is of age ; ask him.' ' 

So then, finding no relief from that source, as a 
possible escape from the dilemma in which they 
were placed, resolved to extort 

The Healetl Man from him a disavowal of the 
Sttuuls lj> for , . , r , 1 1 

miracle m the name of the sab- 

Jesus. . .... . 

batic principle, in other terms, 
to annihilate the fact by a dogma, they called a 
second time the man that was blind, and, as if by 
the weight of their authority to so intimidate him 
that he would adopt their view of the case, said 
unto him : "In saying that the man called Jesus 
who, thou dost allege, opened thine eyes, is ' a 
prophet,' thou hast spoken blasphemy. Give glory 
to God, therefore, as it is in contempt of His holi- 
ness and truth to give the title of ' prophet ' to a 
violator of the Sabbath : but whatever thine opin- 
ion of Him may be, we know that this Man is a 



140 The Incarnate Word 



sinner, and our judgment must be final in the case. 
It is impossible that such a man could do such a 
miracle. Dost thou hear ? " 

Admitting his incompetency in theological mat- 
ters, simply opposing fact to dogma, conscious of 
the bad faith of his inquisitors, unawed by their 
authority, refusing to be either brow-beaten or 
dragooned, not yielding an inch to either threats 
or persuasion, but sturdily standing up for the 
testimony of his senses, he therefore answered : 
1 i Whether He be a sinner, I knotv not : one thing, 
however, / do know ; and that is, that, whereas I 
was blind, now I see ! 1 ' 

Feeling the force of the healed man's position, 
changing the point of their inquiry from the 
'/who" to the "how," asking him again as to the 
circumstances of the fact, hoping to find in some 
detail of his account a means of assailing the fact 
itself, while intimating at the same time by way of 
drawing out the witness, that they were yet willing 
to believe, if the facts were not decisive against be- 
lief, they said therefore unto him: "What did 
He to thee ? how opened He thine eyes ? n 

Indignant at their return to a phase of the in- 
vestigation already settled, out of all patience at 
their redoubled efforts to make him disbelieve his 
own senses, waxing bold and triumphing in their 



Blind Unbelief 



impotence, declining to repeat his story at their 
request, in a reply tinged alike with irony and 
sarcasm, he answered them: "I told you even 
now, and ye did not hear : wherefore would you 
hear it again ? would ye also become His dis- 
ciples ?" 

And, unaccustomed to be treated so cavalierly, 
with so little deference and awe, in their excite- 
ment forgetting alike their pride and position, in- 
censed at the insinuation contained in the healed 
man's words, seeking to cover their embarrassment 
by insult and to repel satire with contempt, they 
reviled him and said : " Thou, beggar, mendicant 
that thou art, art His disciple, a suitable follower 
of such an irresponsible master, thyself an impostor 
and the follower of an impostor ; but we are dis- 
ciples of Moses. We know that God spake unto 
Moses : but as for This Man, we know not whence 
He is, that is, who sent Him, or by whose authority 
He acteth. Suffice it to say, that we know He is 
not from God ! " 

Seeing that there is a wish to argue with him, 
becoming more and more bold, turning logician, 
resolved to fight them with their own weapons, in 
an argument compact, cogent, and conclusive, un- 
abashed and true-hearted, loyal to his Benefactor 
the man answered and said unto them : "Ye do 



142 The incarnate Word 



not know whence this man is, ye say ? Truly in 
this confession there is something which itself 
bordereth on the miraculous. Why herein is the 
marvel, that ye know not whence He is, and yet 
He opened mine eyes / 

" Surely there is here a miracle greater than my 
cure itself — your unbelief ! 

"We k?tow, for it is a theocratic axiom, that a 
miracle is an answer to prayer, and that the prayer 
of a wicked person is not answered, that God 
heareth not sinners, men that are impostors : but if 
any man be a sincere worshipper of God, him He 
heareth / 

' ' Since the world began it was never before 
heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born 
blind. Yet this is exactly what in my case hath 
been done, and therefore the doer of it must be the 
bearer of a Divine commission. If This Man were 
not from God, He could do nothing miraculous, 
and, at any rate, nothing so miraculous as the 
opening of mine eyes ! " 

Defeated by his pitiless logic, whose point of 
support is simply the principle 

The First Con- ^ ^ ^ j n ^ outburst 

of angry passion they answered 

municatetl. 

and said unto him : " I hou wast 



Religious Persecution 



143 



altogether born in sins, and dost thou presume to 
teach us, holy men of God ? " 

And, as the penalty of his courageous fidelity, 
pronouncing upon him the sentence of major ex- 
communication with all its dreadful consequences, 
expelling him from all fellowship with the theocratic 
community, the ancient church of God, they cast 
him out ! 



Shortly after Jesus heard that they had cast him 
out ; and with the view to the spiritual enlighten- 
ment of him who had with such 

The Healetl Mans intrep j dity confessed Him be- 
Spiritual XII a- r T _. . . 

fore His enemies, to the con- 

mination. . r . . 

firmation of his faith, and to 
comfort him in his tribulation, finding him, He 
said to him: " Dost thou believe on the Messiah, 
the Son of God ? ' ' 

The man whose eyes had been opened had al- 
ready confessed that Jesus was a prophet ; but, on 
reflection, in view of the wonderful works He had 
done, he had come to think that his Benefactor 
must be more than a prophet, and to wish to be 
His disciple; and being ready to receive His testi- 
mony concerning Himself, whatever that might be; 
in a sort of expectation that the extraordinary per- 
son he was addressing could tell him where the 



144 



The Incarnate Word 



Messiah was, or perhaps might Himself be that 
personage; in an eager, urgent, wondering ques- 
tion, in reply to the question of Jesus as to whether 
he believed on the Messiah or not, he answered 
and said : " And who is He, Lord, that I may 
believe on Him ? Art Thou that personage? dost 
Thou sustain that character? " 

Perceiving the readiness of His confessor to re- 
ceive the truth, making such an unreserved and 
full revelation of His Messiahship as He had only 
once before done, to the woman of Samaria, yet 
not in terms admitting His identity, but, as a 
guarantee of His present witness to Himself, de- 
scribing Himself as the One who had given him 
his sight, Jesus said unto him : " Thou hast 
both seen Him, and He it is that speaketh with 
thee/" 

It was enough. The gradual illumination of the 
man whose eyes were opened was now n earing its 
consummation, and " the work of God " in him its 
completion. Faith had at length found its object, 
and, promptly, on the confession of Jesus, he said : 
' ' Lord, L believe ! ' ' 

And, prostrating himself before Jesus in adoring 
gratitude, doing Him homage as the Messiah, the 
Son of God, and thereby acknowledging himself 
to be His disciple, he worshipped Him / 



Twofold Effect of Truth 14s 



And, addressing Himself to the witnesses of this 
scene, and giving expression to the general result 
of His own ministry and of the 

The Moral Result , . c - , , - . 

preaching of the gospel through - 

of Jesus' Ministry. , _ 

out the world, yes us said : " For 
judgment, for distinction and separation, that men's 
dispositions may be put to the proof and their 
characters revealed, came I into this world, that 
they which see not, those actually sunk in spiritual 
ignorance, may see ; and that they which see, or 
think they see, those wise in their own conceits, 
experts in the law, refusing to admit the light that 
is brought to them, and so losing the power of see- 
ing by wilfully confining their vision, may become 
blind!" 

Those of the Pharisees which were with Him 
heard these things, and, recognizing their own 
moral likeness in the mirror Jesus held up before 
them, feeling that His blows were aimed at them, 
not humbly and earnestly, but ironically, as if, in 
their case, the great doctors of Israel, such a thing 
were impossible and absurd, said unto Him : "Are 
we also, as well as the ignorant multitude, blind?" 

Instead of treating them as blind, as they no 
doubt expected, but, on the contrary, replying to 
their sarcasm with crushing severity, Jesus said 
unto them : "It were a thing to be wished for, for 



146 The Incarnate Word 



your sakes ? that ye were so ; for if y e were blind, 
instead of possessing, as ye do, ' the key of knowl- 
edge,' your unbelief being in such case involuntary 
and therefore pardonable, ye would have no sin ; 
but now ye say, ' We see ' : hence your unbelief, 
being the rejection of truth discerned and there- 
fore voluntary and unpardonable, your sin re- 
maineth / ' ' 



The Messianic Flock 



" Verily, verily, I say unto you" said Jesus, 
continuing to address the crowd which witnessed 
the scene in connection with the 

The Shepherd r • tr j i 

confession of the blind man whose 

Gathering tit , i 

eyes had been opened, and espe- 

the Flock. \ . . 

cially the Pharisees which were 
a part of it, " he that, claiming to be an authorized 
religious teacher in Israel, and securing admission 
to the sacred office upon any pretense other than 
that of faith in the Messiah announced and pre- 
figured in the Hebrew Scriptures, and so enter eth 
not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but, actu- 
ated by mercenary motives or other selfish and 
unworthy considerations, breaking violently into 
the fold, without the consent and commission of 
the Divine Owner of the flock, and exercising an 
unauthorized and despotic ministry over it, climb- 
eth up some other way, the same, not nourishing it 
with proper spiritual pabulum, caring more for the 
fleece than the flock, and so despoiling it, is a 
thief and a robber / 

147 



148 



The Incarnate Word 



"But he that, in the faith of such a scriptural 
and spiritual Messiah, with an eye single to the 
weal of the flock and the moral profit of its Divine 
Owner, entereth in by the door, as I now do, is the 
shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter in tem- 
porary charge of the fold, as John the Baptizer did 
to Me, introducing him into his office, openeth ; 
and the sheep, recognizing the truth, hear his voice ; 
and, with personal knowledge of each, he calleth 
his own sheep by name, and, separating them from 
those which belong to other shepherds, he leadeth 
them out of the old legal inclosure, devoted to ruin, 
into the fresh pasturage and secures protection of 
the new Israel, the spiritual theocracy. 

" When with a loving violence He hath put 
forth all His own, as the true Messiah He goeth 
before them, and with abiding confidence in 
His divine leadership the sheep follow Him : 
for, recognizing it by the ring of truth that is 
in it, they know His voice. And a stranger, a 
false Messiah or other teacher, will they not fol- 
low, but, frightened at his doctrines and conduct, 
will flee from him : for they know not the voice 
of strangers ! ' ' 

This parable or allegory spake Jesus unto them : 
but, never dreaming that they, the Pharisees, were 
the thieves and robbers, and unable to attach any 



Jesus the Door 



149 



spiritual meaning to His words, they understood 
not what things they luere which He spake unto 
them. 



In the foregoing allegory, having brought before 
us a morning scene in Palestine, and desiring now 
to convey some idea of the 

Prerogatives of sweetness f ] ife under His be _ 
the Messianic • . -\ • ■ r 

mgn government, bringing before 
us in a new allegory a midday 
scene in oriental pastoral experience, detailing the 
prerogatives of the Messianic flock, Jesus there- 
fore said unto them again : ' ' Verily ', verily, I say 
unto you, I, being the source, support, and inspira- 
tion of the spiritual life of all who become mem- 
bers of the new Israel, am the Door of the sheep. 
All the self-commissioned religious teachers that 
came before Me, firing the national heart with false 
hopes and expectations, conveying erroneous no- 
tions of the Messianic kingdom, giving stones of 
religious ceremony, instead of the true bread of 
truth to the people, making themselves doors of 
approach to God, are thieves and robbers : but, 
profoundly disgusted with their endless mummery 
and meaningless platitudes, and hollow hypocrisy 
and pantomime religionism, the sheep, the spiritually 
minded among the people, who, like Simeon and 



i^o The Incarnate Word 



Anna at My coming, were waiting for the consola- 
tion of Israel, did not hear them / 

" I am the Door, I repeat it^ the God-ap- 
pointed entrance into His fold : by Me if any 
man enter in, partaking of the fullness of blessing 
in the Messianic kingdom, he shall be saved, and 
in the exercise of the noblest personal freedom, 
he shall go in and out, and, provided constantly 
with abundance of spiritual pabulum, he shall find 
pasture / 

" The thief, the self-constituted door into the fold 
of God, taking advantage of his position, cometh 
not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy : 
on the other hand, / came that, emancipating the 
people from the thralldom of such an unworthy, 
self-seeking, and despotic ministry, quickening 
their moral nature, and feeding them with food 
convenient for them, they may have life, and may 
have it abundantly ! 

" I am the Good Shepherd : the good shepherd 
in the perfection of self-sacrifice layeth down his 
?tfe for the sheep." 

The Good 8hep- ~ . 7 , 7 ■ . 

t d tne contrary, he that is a 

hireling, being a mere ecclesias- 
tic, a professional preacher, a mercenary minis- 
ter, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are 



The Good Shepherd 



151 



not, in consternation and alarm beholdeth the wolf of 
persecution coming, and, looking out for his own 
personal safety, leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and, 
with none to protect them, the wolf snatcheth them, 
and scattereth them : he fleeth because he is a hire- 
ling and careth not for the sheep ! 

" I am the Good Shepherd ; and, by reason of 
the life common to us both, I know Mine own, 
and Mine own know Me, even as the Father know- 
eth Me, and I know the Father ; and I lay down 
My life for the sheep / 

< ' And other sheep I have which are not of thh 
Jewish fold : them also, the believing Gentiles the 
globe over and the world through, I must bring, 
and through the agency of duly appointed minis- 
ters, they shall hear My voice ; and, all being by 
faith united to Myself, they shall become One Flock, 
One Shepherd ! 

" Therefore, viewing My Messianic mission with 
infinite complacency and approbation, doth My 
Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that 
I may take it again. No one taketh it away 
from Me, but, the sacrifice being wholly voluntary, 
/ lay it down of Myself. For as Messiah, in the 
execution of My divine commission, I have power, 
right or authority, to lay it down, and I have 
power, right or authority, to take it again. This 



152 The Incarnate Word 



commandment or commission received I from My 
Father!" 

There arose a division again among the fetus be- 
caicse of these words or d i scour s- 

JE/fect of JTestis, r T 

ings of Jesus. 

Teaching. 

Many of them, filled with prej- 
udice, incensed at His severe reflections on them- 
selves and what seemed to them the monstrous 
claims He made for Himself, and regarding His 
utterances as but the ravings of a fanatic or one 
possessed with a demon, in an outburst of fury, 
said : " He hath a devil and is mad ! why hear ye 
Him ? It is absolute folly and a criminal waste of 
time to listen to such idle vaporings ! " 

Others more favorably disposed, reasoning more 
soberly and judging more righteously, and defend- 
ing Jesus both on the score of His words and work, 
calmly said : " These are not the sayings of one 
possessed with a devil. Can a devil open the eyes 
of the blind?" 



At the Feast of Dedication 



And it was the feast of the dedication at Jeru- 
salem — the festival instituted to commemorate the 
purging of the Temple after its 

Cause of Jewish . . , 

pollution by the Syrians under 

Unbelief. r J J 

Antiochus Epiphanes, b. c. 167 
— when after an absence of two months, spent 
mainly in Galilee and in His last journey thither, 
Jesus found Himself in the Holy City once more : it 
was winter, about mid-December, at that time ; 
and, choosing a sheltered place for His teaching, 
Jesus was walking in the Temple in Solomon 's 
Porch. 

Taking advantage of the situation as being favor- 
able for a decisive interview, the Jews therefore, as 
if to bar His escape until they attained their end, 
forming in a circle, came round about Him, and, 
with the view of putting an end to an agony that 
was fast becoming intolerable, and of getting an 
express avowal from Him as to His pretensions and 
purposes, in a question betraying the excited state 
of the public mind, said unto Him : "How long 
J 53 



154 



The Incarnate Word 



dost Thou hold us in suspense ? If Thou art the 
Christ, without reserve or hesitation, without cir- 
cumlocution or ambiguity, but in so many words, 
tell us plainly / ' ' 

Owing to the grossly secular conceptions and ex- 
travagant ideas they attached to the term Messiah, to 
their demand that He should say explicitly whether 
He was the Christ or not, Jesus could neither an- 
swer yes nor no, whether He was or was not. If He 
said, "Yes, I am the Christ," this would be to 
consent to their false notion of the office of 
Messiah: if He said, "No, I am not the Christ," 
this would be to deny Himself, for He was in truth 
the Christ of God. His reply was therefore ad- 
mirable for its wisdom; throwing His questioners 
back upon their own spiritual discernment, and re- 
ferring them to the signs which He did as suf- 
ficiently evincing His character and mission, Jesus 
answered them: "On previous occasions / told 
you, not, indeed, directly and explicitly, as ye now 
demand, but in such a way that faith could not 
misunderstand My meaning, and ye believe not : 
and even if My teaching remained a riddle to you, 
the works which I do in My Father } s name, these 
bear witness of Me that I am He ! 

"It is not, however, for lack of evidence that ye 
remain in a state of doubt and unbelief : but ye be- 



The Greatest Guarantee 



155 



lieve not, because, being morally averse to Me, and 
at the spiritual antipodes from Me, ye are not of 
My sheep / 

" Moreover your condition as compared with the 
character and privileges of My Messianic flock, is 
infinitely sad and deplorable; 
seem ityof chtt&t s ^ ^ e relation between them 

and Me being of a reciprocal 
character, believing the word preached, My sheep 
hear My voice, and, recognizing them as Mine, dis- 
charging toward them all the duties of a good 
shepherd, / know them, and, with a loving trust, 
walking in the paths of righteousness, they follow 
Me : and, bestowing on them as a present posses- 
sion, the greatest conceivable good, / give unto 
them eternal life : and, as an inspiration to their 
confidence in the midst of whatever trials and 
temptations they may from time to time find them- 
selves, they have the assurance of My personal 
guarantee that in following Me they shall never 
perish, and no one, by any possible craft or cun- 
ning artifice, shall snatch them out of My hand I 

"Moreover, as though to make surety doubly 
sure, the Divine Almightiness is pledged to secure 
their victory over every foe : for My Father, whose 
they are, and which hath given them tmto Me as 



i 5 6 



The Incarnate Word 



the reward of My interposition on their behalf, 
is greater than all powers and agents that may- 
combine for their capture and ruin : and no one is 
able to snatch them out of the Father' 's hand. 
Whoever therefore would undertake to wrest them 
from Me, must begin by first wresting them from 
Him, the Almighty One ! 

" And so complete is the moral harmony, the abso- 
lute agreement in purpose and cooperation between 
Him and Me, that I may say that I and the 
Father are one ! ' ' 



Rightly discerning in our Lord's words an as- 
sertion of His, Divine Sonship, incensed at what 
seemed to them an unwarranta- 

Charge of Sifts- x , . , c 

ble assumption on the part of 

jiliemy Repelled. 

one whom they regarded as 
only a man, and a bad man at that, in one of their 
chronic bursts of uncontrollable fury, the Jews took 
up stones again to stone Him. 

Neither withdrawing nor quailing before the 
fierce fury of His adversaries, but, on the contrary, 
standing His ground, conscious of no offence 
against the majesty of God, no invasion of the 
Divine prerogatives, nor yet of any violation of the 
moral code which could furnish any rational ground 
for this exhibition of their murderous hate, unless, 



Jesus Alleged Blasphemy 



indeed, they still regarded as such some of the 
miracles He had wrought as signs of His Messiah- 
ship, as the healing of the impotent man at the 
pool of Bethesda, and the opening of the eyes of the 
man born blind, both of which had roused their in- 
dignation because they were wrought on the Sab- 
bath, upbraiding them for their lack of appreciation 
of the privileges they had enjoyed, in a question 
containing a keen irony and expressive of the 
deepest indignation, Jesus answered them, saying: 
"Many good works have I shewed you from the 
Father : for which of those works do ye now pro- 
pose to stone Me ? ' ' 

Indignant at what Jesus ascribeth to them as the 
ground of their purpose to stone Him, and assigning 
an entirely different reason for their threatened violent 
action, relegating Jesus to the category of ordinary 
humanity, in tones of angry recrimination, the Jews 
answered Him : " For a good work we stone Thee 
not, but for blasphemy ; and because that Thou, be- 
ing only a man like to ourselves, assuming a divine 
relationship, as Thy words imply, makest Thyself "a* 
God : by which we mean, that Thou, being simply 
human, makest Thyself superhuman or Divine ! " 

Jesus acknowledged that the inference the Jews 
had drawn from what He said was quite correct ; 
No article in the Greek. 



i 58 The Incarnate Word 



but He immediately proceedeth to prove that, so 
far from rendering Himself amenable to the charge 
of blasphemy on that account, He was fully war- 
ranted in using the words He did, and that He had 
therefore a. right to the title which they refused 
Him. In doing this He used a style of reasoning 
quite Jewish in its character, but on that account 
the best suited to impress the audience He addressed. 
Basing His reasoning on the irrefragibility of 
Scripture, which they themselves admitted, and 
arguing from a lesser to a greater, Jesus answered 
them : "Is it not written in the sixth verse of the 
eighty-third Psalm of your law, that Asaph, the 
inspired penman, speaking of judges and magis- 
trates as the representatives and organs of God here 
on earth, saith, 6 1 said, Ye are gods, sons of the 
Most High ? ' If then he called them gods unto 
whom in the way of a divine commission the word 
of God came — and the Scripture making this dec- 
laration cannot be broken, excepted to, or thought 
wrong, being a part of the Holy Writings themselves 
— say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, 
setting Him apart to an office far higher than that 
of ruler or judge, or even prophet, and sent into 
the world, ' Thou blasphemest' : because I said, 
not, < I am God/ as ye allege, but, ' I am {the) * Son 
* No article in the Greek. 



His Works His Witness 159 



of God,' which I am, being, both as to My origin 
and Mission, Divine ? 

"If I were a mere man, like the judges and 
magistrates of Israel, bearing a divine commission, 
according to the scripture already cited, I should 
not deserve to be treated as a blasphemer ; much 
less should I be so dealt with considering My per- 
sonal relationship to Him that sent Me. 

"I do not ask, however, although I might so 
demand, that ye accord belief to My simple per- 
sonal affirmation : I appeal to the signs I have 
wrought in confirmation of the truth of the things I 
have said concerning Myself. If therefore / do 
710 1 the works of My Father, works which bear the 
stamp and seal of the Divine Almightiness, believe 
Me not. But if I do them, though doubting My 
personal word, ye believe not Me, believe the works, 
which speak for themselves : that ye may knoiu and 
understand the unity of purpose and cooperation 
that existeth between Us, that the Father is in Me, 
as His Son and Representative, and I in Him, as 
the source and inspiration of My divine nature 
and mission ! " 



The Jews had waited for a retraction, but they 
had heard a defence. In our 

JTesus in Retreat. T i, , 

Lord s words they saw no abate- 



160 The Incarnate Word 



ment of His claim, but in fact a reaffirmation of 
His former declaration of His filial relation with 
the Father, which had given them such offence, and 
utterly insensible to either argument or reason, 
blinded by their unbelief, they sought again to take 
Him, with the view of immediately compassing 
His death : and, as His hour was not yet come, 
breaking through the circle they had formed 
around Him, and leaving the Temple, He went 
forth, as on previous occasions, out of their hand / 

And since it was evident that, from the mood in 
which the Jews then were, Jesus was no longer safe 
in Jerusalem, after the feast of Dedication had 
come to an end, abandoning the Holy City, and 
returning to the neighborhood of the scene of His 
early ministry, He went away again beyond Jordan 
into the half-heathen territory of Perea, to Bethany 
or Barbara, the place where John was at first bap- 
tizing : and there, in that retired region, He abode 
during the remaining months of His life, until for 
the last time He again " went up to Jerusalem." 

And, drawn by His fame, many came unto Him : 
and, after they had heard His words and seen His 
works, they said : "John indeed did no miracle as 
a sign of his divine mission, but all things whatso- 
ever John spake of This Man were true /" 

And many believed on Him there. 



The Resurrection of Lazarus 



Noiu a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Beth- 
any, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 

It was in this village, situated 
T " e Messa " e fo > on the eastern slope of the Mount 

and Arrival _ , .. r 

of Olives, about two miles from 

of, Jesus. 

Jerusalem, and it was in the 
dwelling of these sisters that Jesus had found a home 
in the earlier, as now also in the latter, days of His 
ministry, the deepest, purest friendship existing be- 
tween Himself and the various members of this in- 
teresting household. 

And it was that Mary which, as a token of lov- 
ing reverence and confidence, at a time subsequent 
to this event, anointed the Lord with ointment, 
spikenard, and very precious, and wiped His feet 
with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 

The condition of the patient at this time was 
critical. The sisters therefore, in their loving 
anxiety, sent unto Him in His retreat a message as 
delicate as it was urgent, offering no plea, making 
no suggestion, but simply stating the fact, satisfied 
161 



The Incarnate Word 



that this was all that was needed to bring Him to 
their side, saying: " Lord, behold, he whom Thou 
lovest is sick ! ' ' 

But when Jesus heard it, instead of repairing at 
once to the afflicted home in Bethany, giving no 
hint of what was to come, He simply said in the 
hearing both of the messengers and of His disciples, 
by way of enkindling faith and inspiring hope : 
" This sickness, as regards its final issue, is not 
unto death, but for the glory of God, that, giving 
Him a supreme opportunity for manifesting His 
Messianic character, the Son of God may be glorified 
thereby ! ' ' 

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and 
Lazarus. 

When therefore He heard that he was sick, pur- 
suing a course the direct opposite of that we should 
have expected Him in the circumstances to adopt, 
and notwithstanding the additional grief it would 
bring to His sorrowing friends, relying on the future 
to make it all plain, He abode at that time two days 
in the place where He was ! 

Then after this, Lazarus having in the meanwhile 
died, startling them with the suggestion, He saith 
to His disciples : ' 1 Let us go into Judea again ! ' ' 

Surprised at what seemed to them a most unwise 
and imprudent step, and astonished that Jesus 



Death a Sleep 



i6 3 



should so much as suggest such a thing, the disci- 
ples say unto Him : " Rabbi ', the Jews were but now 
seeking to stone Thee ; and goest Thou thither 
again ? ' ' 

Instead of giving a direct reply to the remon- 
strance of His timid disciples, bidding them not 
to be afraid, first quoting a proverbial saying, and 
then drawing from that saying general lessons about 
the time which any one who is on a journey will 
choose for making it, intimating to the disciples 
that He Himself could take no harm till His day 
of work was over, and that they could take no harm 
while He was with them, Jesus answered them, 
saying : " Are there not twelve working hours in the 
day ? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, 
because he seeth the light of this world. But if a 
man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the 
light is not in him." 

These things about our working day period 
spake He : and after this, having paused for 
a little, in words of matchless beauty and tender- 
ness, breaking to His disciples the fact that the 
sick man in Bethany had passed away, speaking 
metaphorically, He saith unto them : " Our friend 
Lazarus is fallen asleep ; but I go that I may wake 
him out of sleep ! ' ' 

Glad of what Jesus had said as to the condition 



164 



The Incarnate Word 



of Lazarus, taking His words in their literal sense, 
seeing in them the evidence of the sick man's con- 
valescence, a return to Judea in such case being in 
their view rendered unnecessary, the disciples there- 
fore said unto Him : "Lord, if he is fa lie 71 asleep, 
he will recover / ' ' 

Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they, 
slow of heart either to remember or understand, 
thought that He spake of taking rest in sleep. 

Then, perceiving the mistake of His disciples, 
and correcting them, at the same time intimating 
that the sad event would result in great good to 
themselves, dropping metaphor, Jesus therefore said 
unto them : ' 1 Lazarus is dead. And I am glad 
for your sakes that 1 was not there — for had I 
been, I would have healed him — to the intent that, 
seeing what would follow, having still greater 
grounds for your faith, ye may believe ; nevertheless, 
though our friend be dead, casting aside all fears, 
and delaying no longer, let us go unto him / " 

Still convinced of the unwisdom of His course, 
seeing in it certain death for his Master, looking 
ever on the dark side of things, the always de- 
spondent, pessimistic, doubting, but affectionate 
and devoted Thomas, therefore, who is called 
Didymus, said unto his fellow-disciples : "Let us 
also go, that we may die with Him / ' ' 



Individual Idiosyncrasy. 




To this they agreed. 

So when, after a long day's journey, Jesus with 
His disciples came to Bethany, He found what, in 
the nature of things, He knew must be the case, 
that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days al- 
ready ! 

Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about 
fifteen furlongs off ; and many of the Jews had 
come to Martha and Mary, as was the custom, to 
console them concerning their brother. 

Martha therefore, when she heard Jesus was 
coming, true to her active, demonstrative and 



keeping with her peculiarly quiet, gentle, medita- 
tive, and pensive temperament, crushed and 
stunned by her affliction, and wholly absorbed in 
her sorrow, having not as yet been made aware of 
His approach, Mary still sat in the house. 

Martha therefore, the moment she came into 
His presence, giving expression to the conflicting 
emotions which struggled within her, with honest 
impulsiveness pouring out her heart's plaint, yet in 
words redolent of love and confidence and devo- 
tion, said unto Jesus : " Lord, if Thou hadst been 



Martha and Mary. 



Jesus Meets 



impulsive disposition, dropping 
everything, and filled w T ith emo- 
tion, went and met Him : but, in 



1 66 The Incarnate Word 

here, my brother had not died ! And even now I 
know that whatsoever Thou shalt ask of God, God 
will give Thee, even though the request be the re- 
turn to life of my brother ! " 

Taking no exception to the inadequate view of 
His person implied in Martha's words, or to His 
dependence on God for His miracle-working 
power to which she gave expression, but by way of 
leading her on to the fuller revelation of Himself, 
His office, and person, that was to follow, making 
to her a broad, general promise, and using words 
designedly ambiguous, being susceptible of appli- 
cation either to the final resurrection or to the 
present case, Jesus saith unto her : " Thy brother 
shall rise again ! ' ' 

Uncertain as to the real intent of Jesus' words, 
but in evident disappointment, if He meant to 
limit her to the hope she cherished in common 
with her people, with the view of drawing from 
Him a more specific utterance, giving Him an op- 
portunity to explain Himself, sobbing in her sor- 
row, Martha saith unto Him : "I know, of course, 
that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the 
last day ; but that is cold comfort, being a far dis- 
tant event. It is a nearer and a better consolation 
that I want ! " 

With the view of awakening in Martha the high- 



Christ our Hope 



167 



est hope, and of correcting her humanitarian views 
respecting Himself and His mission ; substituting 
for adherence to dogmatic truth confidence in His 
person ; lifting the act up into the spiritual sphere 
in which alone it would assume its true meaning 
and value ; giving to Himself the great witness of 
which the miracle itself is the proof ; in a wondrous 
sentence in which we have in a few words a grand 
summary of the gospel, and in which the sublim- 
ity of the language is not less remarkable than the 
great truths conveyed in the words ; preparing the 
sorrowing sister to stretch forth the hand of faith 
to receive the mighty boon He was about to be- 
stow upon her, Jesus said unto her : " I am the 
resurrection, and the life / he that believeth on Me, 
though he die, yet shall he live ! and whosoever be- 
lieveth on Me shall never die ! Believest thou 
this?" 

Unable to give a categorical answer to our Lord's 
question • not sufficiently comprehending the mean- 
ing of His words to warrant her in giving explicit 
assent to each particular contained in His declara- 
tion ; but thinking she believed all He said when 
she believed Him to be the true promised Messiah ; 
and so falling back on a general answer in which 
she stateth simply, yet decidedly, what was the ex- 
tent of her creed, she saith unto Him: "Yea, 



The Incarnate Word 



Lord ; I have believed that Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of God, even He that cometh into the 
world. This is my faith, and hath been for a long 
time ! " 

And when she had said this, Jesus being satisfied 
with her confession, at His suggestion she went 
away, and called Mary her sister secretly, that the 
interview between her and Him might not be inter- 
rupted by the unbelieving Jews who were among 
the comforters that surrounded her, and using the 
name by which He was familiarly known in the 
family at Bethany, in breathless excitement she 
whispered her message to her sister, saying: 
i ' The Master is here and calleth thee / ' 9 

And Mary, when she heard it, thrilled by the 
message and inspired by hope, rousing herself to 
action, arose quickly, and with hurried footsteps 
went unto Him. 

Now for prudential reasons, desiring to avoid 
everything which could attract attention and pro- 
duce excitement, Jesus was not yet come into the 
village, but was still in the place where Martha 
met Him. 

The Jews then which were with her in the house, 
and were comforting her after the custom of that 
people, when they saiv Mary, that she rose up 
quickly and went out, — thus defeating the object 



Jesus Unmanned 



169 



Martha had in conveying to her the Master's mes- 
sage secretly— -followed her, supposing that she was 
going unto the tomb to zveep there ; the presence of 
the memorials of loved ones tending to excite the 
heart to renewed expressions of sorrow. 

Mary therefore, when she came where Jesus was, 
and saw Him, overcome with uncontrollable emo- 
tion, fell at His feet, saying unto Him, as Martha 
had done, and sobbing convulsively as she spake : 
" Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had 
not died ! ' ' 

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the 
Jews also weeping which came with her, deeply 
moved by their manifestation of 

Jesus in Tears. 

love and sorrow, which urged 
Him on to do that for which He had come ; but 
recalling the fact, that to do so was to sign the 
sentence of His own death, inasmuch as, instead 
of glorying in so great a display of divine power, 
His enemies will find in it a ground of condemna- 
tion against Him, seized with horror at the thought, 
His perturbation of soul communicating itself to 
His bodily frame, which shuddered perceptibly, 
He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. This 
revulsion of feeling, however, was but for a mo- 
ment ; and when He recovered His composure, 



170 



The Incarnate Word 



recalling the purpose for which He had come into 
the world, prepared to take all the consequences of 
His great deed, inquiring as to the place of the 
sepulture of His friend, addressing the group of 
mourners with which He was surrounded, in tones 
at once indicative of His tenderness and high re- 
solve He said : " Where have ye laid him ? " 

Unaware of His purpose in making this inquiry, 
but supposing that, actuated by ordinary motives, 
He desired to see the grave that He might weep at 
it, expressing their readiness to accompany Him to , 
the place where the remains of His friend had been 
deposited, with affectionate reverence they say unto 
Hun : ' • Lord, come and see / ' ' 

Accepting their guidance, manifesting His deep 
sympathy with the mourning friends, all that sad, 
sorrowful walk to the sepulchre, mingling His tears 
with theirs, thus giving expression to His calm and 
gentle grief— Jesus wept / 

The Jews therejore who beheld this exhibition 
of the true humanness of our Lord, interpreting 
His tears as an evidence of His great affection for 
His dead friend, and giving expression to the min- 
gled feeling of surprise and admiration this mani- 
festation of His tenderness awoke within them, in 
this brief exclamation said: "Behold how He 
loved him ! " 



Criticism 



But some of them, dissenting from the view just 
expressed, finding in His tears a reason for suspect- 
ing His character, with a sneer of sarcasm ringing 
in their words, said : " Could not This Man which 
opened the eyes of him that was blind, have caused 
that this man also should not die ? If He loved 
Lazarus, why did He not cure him ? Is not the 
fact that He did not, clear proof, either that His 
other miracles were unreal or His tears a pretence ? 
Can such a man be the Son of God, the Messiah ? " 

Aware that they were murmuring such things 
against Him, experiencing another of those mighty 
shudderings that caused His bodily frame to trem- 
ble, and which was called forth by the malevolent 
remark of the unbelieving Jews, Jesus therefore 
again groaning in Himself, cometh to the tomb. 

Now like most graves in the limestone districts 
of Palestine, it was a cave, and serving the purpose 
of a door, a stone lay against 

At the Tomb of n i i i 

it. Expecting human hands to 
do what human hands can to- 
ward effecting an end beyond their reach before 
divine interposition may be looked for, addressing 
Himself to the bystanders, Jesus saith : " Take 
ye away the stone / ^ 

Her faith not yet proving equal to the emergency, 



172 



The Incarnate Word 



supposing that our Lord's purpose in seeking to 
have the stone rolled away from the grave's mouth 
was, that He might look upon the face of His de- 
parted friend, gently remonstrating against the pro- 
posed action, animated by the most delicate con- 
siderations, in her plain, matter-of-fact way, 
Martha the sister of him that was dead, saith unto 
Him : 6 ' Lord, by this time he stinketh ! for he 
hath been dead four days / ' ' 

By way of overcoming her very natural opposi- 
tion, hinting at the mighty act of love and power 
that she might expect to follow, as a prop to her 
weak and wavering faith, addressing Martha, and 
referring to their previous conversation, Jesus saith 
unto her : " Said I not unto thee, that, if thou be- 
lievedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God ? " 

These words had the intended effect : Martha 
was satisfied that it should be as Jesus directed. 
So, seeing that the opposition of the one who clearly 
had a right to object was withdrawn, they took 
away the stone. 

And, standing before the open cave, the crowd 
waiting in breathless excitement to see what would 
come next, prefacing His mighty 

Lazarxis Lives 1 1 ^ , 

act by an address to God in 

Again. 

which, openly and boldly chal- 



The Mighty Mandate 



173 



lenging the attention of the on-looking Jews, He 
proclaimeth the fact that He speaketh and acteth, as 
He now does, as a distinct proof of His Messiahship, 
and suiting the action to the word, Jesus lifted up 
His eyes, and said : " Father, I thank Thee that 
Thou heardest Me in My supplications for Thy 
presence and aid. And I knew that Thou hear est 
Me always, for, as Thy Son and Servant, I do al- 
ways the things that please Thee : but because of 
the multitude which standeth around I said it, that 
they may believe that I am not self-commissioned 
and an impostor, but that Thou didst send Me / " 

And when he had thus spoken, that all might see 
that there was no magic, no necromancy about 
what He was going to do, not in the whispering, 
muttered incantations of the magicians and sorcer- 
ers with which they impose upon public credulity, 
but in words whose brevity and simplicity form a 
grand contrast with their efficacy, speaking in tones 
to be heard by all around, He cried with a loud 
voice, saying : " Lazarus, come forth / " 

In immediate response to His quickening word, 
leaving the recess in the cave in which he had been 
laid, he that was dead ca?ne forth, bound hand and 
foot with grave-clothes / and his face 7vas bound 
about with a napkin ! conclusive proof that he had 
been really dead, and his corpse treated as all other 



174 



The Incarnate Word 



corpses. And it was obviously impossible for one not 
dead to breathe through the napkin for four days ! 

And while the spectators stood motionless, silent, 
awe-stricken at the spectacle of a living man in 
the cerements of the grave, with perfect composure, 
as if nothing extraordinary had happened, inviting 
the by-standers to participate in the completion of 
the miracle, as He had done in requesting them to 
remove the stone by way of preparation for it, and 
at the same time giving all an opportunity of prov- 
ing the reality of the miracle and the identity of 
Lazarus, Jesus saith unto them: "Loose him, 
and let him go / " 

Many therefore of the Jews, which came to Mary 
and, having gone with her to the tomb, beheld that 
which He did, unable to resist 
the evidence of an act so tran- 
scendent, their remaining preju- 
dices giving way before it, believed on Him, that 
He was the Christ of God. 

But other some of them, the Jews, who had not 
come to Mary, villagers or visitors to Bethany, who 
shared in the hostility of the rulers to Jesus, per- 
sisting in their unbelief despite the force of evidence 
so convincing, seeing the popular enthusiasm the 
raising of Lazarus had awakened, went away to 



Hierarc hical Dread of Jesus 17s 



the Pharisees, and, in great excitement, told them 
the things which Jesus had done ! 

The chiej priests therefore and the Pharisees, in 
view of this alarming intelligence, hastily summon- 
ing such members of the Sanhedrim as were 
readily accessible, gathered a council, and, seeing 
that a crisis was rapidly approaching, that their 
vested interests were imperilled, that their power 
was in imminent danger of destruction, their words 
betraying the perplexity and disquietude they 
deeply felt, said : "What do zve ? Jor This Man 
doeth many signs ! It is absolutely necessary there- 
fore that some measures be taken to protect our- 
selves against Him, but what ? His doing must de- 
cide ours. IJ, pursuing a merely negative course, 
7ae let Him thus alone, doing nothing effective to 
check His progress, all men will believe on Him : 
and, viewing the excitement He createth and the 
multitudes He gathereth in the light of sedition, 
the Romans will come, and, dethroning us as rulers, 
will take away both our place and our nation ; thus 
depriving us of the last remnant of independence 
that, as a people, we enjoy ! " 

But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, haughty, 
resolute, tyrannical, unscrupulous, in shameful 
avowal of a policy most flagitiously selfish, unjust, 
and wicked, not untying, but with one bold stroke, 



1 7 6 



The Incarnate Word 



cutting the Gordian knot of difficulty, in an 
apostrophe to his colleagues characterized by rude- 
ness, expressing high contempt for their perplexity, 
incertitude, and irresolution, being high priest that 
year, said unto them : "Ye know nothing at all, nor 
do ye take account that it is expedient for you that 
one man should die for the people, and that the whole 
nation perish not. Without further parley there- 
fore, let us kill the Nazarene and save ourselves ! " 

Now this he said not of himself ; but being high 
priest that year or at that time, the most profound 
mystery of the plan of God being proclaimed by 
him in the form of the most detestable maxim, and 
speaking much better than he knew, he prophesied 
that Jesus should die for the nation ; and not for 
the nation only, but that He might also gather to- 
gether into one the children of God that are 
scattered abroad ! 

So from that day forth, accepting the dictum of 
the unscrupulous pontiff, they took counsel that 
they might put Him to death. 

Jesus therefore walked no more openly among 
the Jews in and about Jerusalem, but, going from 
Bethany, departed thence into the 

The Sojourn at . . , 7 7 

country near to the wilderness , 

Ephralm. . . 

into a little obscure city called 



The Supreme Attraction 177 



Ephraim ; and there, free from the tumults and 
machinations of His deadly enemies, preparing 
for the end, during the intervening few weeks He 
tarried with His disciples. 

Now the pass over of the Jews was at hand : and 
many went up to Jerusalem out of the country be- 
fore the passover, to purify themselves, that they 
might be legally qualified to keep the feast. They 
sought therefore for Jesus, and, in their rest- 
less curiosity, gathering in knots here and there, de- 
bating the probabilities of His appearing in the 
Holy City, spake one with another, as they stood in 
the Temple, saying : " What think ye ? That He 
will not come to the feast? Is not that your 
opinion? He did not attend the last passover, 
and the attitude of the authorities toward Him be- 
ing what it is, it is hardly likely He will be present 
at this one ! " 

Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had 
given commandment, that if any man knew where 
He was, he should shew it, that they might take Him. 

The hour having at length come when He should 
discharge the high priestly duties of His Messianic 
office, with full knowledge of the 

The Anointing at , r , , 

murderous mandate of the rulers, 

Bethany. .... , 

and not m the least intimidated 



178 The Incarnate Word 



thereby, Jesus therefore, leaving Ephraim, and on 
His way to Jerusalem to keep the feast, six days be- 
fore the passover, came to Bethany, where 
Lazarus was whom Jesus raised from the dead : 
on His way thither having passed through Jericho, 
where He opened the eyes of blind Bartimeus, con- 
verted and stayed all night with Zaccheus the pub- 
lican, and, amongst other things, foretold His own 
death and the manner of it, all of which is related 
by the other evangelists. 

So when He came to Bethany, in grateful recog- 
nition of the great favor He had shown them, they — 
the two sisters and Lazarus — made Him a supper 
there : and, true to her peculiar temperament, be- 
sides being the mistress of the house and hostess, 
Martha served ; but, as an honored guest, Lazarus 
was one of them that sat at meat with Him. 

With a clear perception of the real dignity of 
Jesus, and as the highest mark of distinction she 
knew how to bestow, uncaring as to what might be 
thought of her act, in the prodigality of love, 
Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of spike- 
nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, 
and wiped His feet with the hair of her head : and 
the house 7aas filled with the odor of the oint- 
ment / 

But Judas Lscariot, one of His disciples, which 



Jesus and the Poor 



179 



should betray Him, seeing in Mary's lavish ex- 
penditure a criminal waste of good money, cloth- 
ing his own niggardliness in the guise of philan- 
thropy, giving expression to a false view of economy, 
which many still entertain, with the indelicacy born 
of covetousness, speaking in a tone of censure loud 
enough for all, even Jesus Himself, to hear, saith : 
"Why was not this ointment sold for three hun- 
dred pence, a sum equal to fifty dollars, and given 
to the poor?" 

Now this he said not because he was a philan- 
thropist and cared for the poor ; but because he 
was a thief ', and, as treasurer of the apostolic band, 
like many others occupying fiducial positions, be- 
traying his trust, having the bag, embezzling the 
funds, took away what was put therein / 

Jesus therefore, in defence and justification of 
Mary's lavish act of love, which is related all over 
the world to her praise, and will be to the end of 
time, and sharply rebuking Judas for his selfish and 
calculating parsimony, said: " Suffer her to keep 
what yet remaineth of it against the day of My 
burying, when she can complete the service she has 
just now, all unwittingly, but none the less fittingly, 
begun ! 

* ' For the poor ye have always with you ; but Me 
ye have not always / ' ' 



i8o 



The Incarnate Word 



The common people therefore of the Jews learned 
that He was there at Bethany : and, moved by a, 
strong natural curiosity, they 

Tfie Priests Plot , x r , 7 7 

came, not for Jesus sake only, 

to Rill liazartis. . 

whose inends they always were, 
but that they might see Lazarus also, whom He 
had raised from the dead. 

But, horrible to relate, in their unbelief and 
envy, thinking they were doing God service, the 
chief priests took council that they might put Laz- 
arus also to death ; because that, a living witness 
to the divine mission of Jesus, by reason of him 
many of the Jews went away, and, despite all they 
could do to prevent it, doing some thinking on 
their own account, believed on Jesus, that He was 
the Messiah, whom they had decided to be an im- 
postor and ought to be put to death ! 

Having spent the last Sabbath before His death 
with His friends in Bethany, on the morrow, our 
Lord's day, a great multitude 

Palm Sunday. come to the feast, when 

they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 
determined upon giving Him a royal reception, in 
manifestation of their homage to Him as the Mes- 
siah took the branches of the palm trees that grew 
by the wayside, and went forth to meet Him, and f 



Enthusiasm Warranted 



1S1 



giving Him true Messianic greeting, in the language 
of the 26th verse of the 11 8th psalm cried out : 
' ' Ho sauna : Blessed is He that cometh in the 
name of Jehovah, even the King of Israel ! " 

And, surrendering Himself to the public hom- 
age, thus tacitly proclaiming His Messiahship, hav- 
ing found a young ass, in token of His spiritual 
and peaceful mission, Jesus sat thereon; as it is 
written in the prophecy of Zechariah : "Fear not, 
daughter of Zion ; behold, thy King cometh, sitting 
071 an ass's colt / " 

These things understood not even His disciples 
at the first : but after His ascension when Jesus 
was glorified, then, the fact interpreting the proph- 
ecy, and shedding light on the event, remembered 
they that these things were written of Him, and 
that they had done these things unto Him. 

The multitude therefore that was with Him, 
when He called Lazarus out of the tomb, and 
raised him from the dead, bare witness, that that 
great miracle had really been wrought, and this 
same Jesus that is now riding on the ass before our 
eyes, is the person that wrought it. For this 
cause also the multitude, filled with enthusiasm, 
went and met Him, for that they heard that He 
had done this sign. 

And seeing this manifestation of Jesus' popular- 



I 82 



The Incarnate Word 



ity and influence, the Pharisees, chagrined, mor- 
tified, baffled, angry, at their wits' end, in the lan- 
guage of exaggeration as respects the fact as it 
then was, but prophetic of what is to be, said: 
" Behold how ye prevail nothing : your threats and 
commands are alike disregarded : lo ! the world is 
gone after Him ! The hour therefore for supreme 
resolution hath arrived. Heroic measures must be 
taken at once, or we are lost ! " 

Noiu there were certain Greeks, proselytes of 
the gate, neither wholly heathen nor out-and-out 
Jews, among those that went up 

The Request of \ 7 . , 7 x , 

to worship at the feast : desir- 

the Greeks. . 

ous of having a private conver- 
sation with Him on religious subjects, but too 
modest to approach Him directly, these therefore 
came to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, 
and, requesting an introduction, asked him, saying : 
< ' Sir, we would see Jesus ! ' ' 

Unwilling to shoulder the responsibility of 
taking a step so revolutionary as that which was 
implied in bringing Greeks to Jesus, Philip cometh 
and telleth Andrew, his fellow-townsman : having 
taken counsel together, and deciding to act favora- 
bly on the Greeks' request, Andrew cometh, and 
Philip, and they tell Jesus. 



Life Through Death 



Seeing in these Greeks representatives of the 
heathen world over which He is destined also to 
extend His sway, but well aware that this spiritual 
royalty involved the severance of His relations with 
the Jewish people, whose Messiah He was, and 
that this could be effected only by His death — 
acting first as the priest of the world, that He 
might subsequently become the King of men — 
profoundly stirred by their request, but declining 
under the circumstances to receive them, and ab- 
sorbed in the reflections which were called forth 
within Him by this step, in words of great sub- 
limity, and with deep emotion, Jesus answer eth 
them, saying : " The hour is come that the Son of 
Man should, by His death, resurrection and as- 
cension, be glorified ; and then, freed from all 
Jewish restrictions, He will be able to do what is 
denied Him at this moment — to communicate 
without restraint with the Greeks and with the 
whole heathen world ! 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a 
grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it 
abideth alone; but if it die, it bear eth much fruit ; 
and so it must be with Me, the Son of Man ! 

"He that loveth his life, so that he is unwilling 
to yield to this law of self-sacrifice, loseth it : and 
he that, obedient to this higher law, in generous 



1 84 



The Incarnate Word 



contempt for what it bringeth to us, hateth his life 
in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal ! 

"If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; 
and where I am, there shall also My servant be : 
if any man serve Me, him will the Father honor ! 

" Nor am I in any wise exempt from the law to 
which My humblest follower is subject; for even 
now, in deep spiritual perturbation, is My soul 
troubled ; and what shall I say ? i Father save 
Me from this hour ' ? — shall I say that ? But for 
this cause came I unto this hour, therefore that 
cannot be My prayer. No ; but, at whatever cost 
of humiliation and suffering, this it shall be : 
6 Father glorify Thy name / ' " 

No sooner had our Lord given utterance to this 
greatest and most comprehensive of all possible 
prayers than, as an expression of the Divine 
approval, there came therefore a voice out of 
Heaven, saying : "I have both glorified it by Thy 
ministry in the past, and will, in the future, in the 
conversion of the world through the ministry of 
Thy servants, glorify it again / " 

Surprised and startled by the grandeur of the 
heaven-filling sound, unable to think of it as an 
utterance of articulate words, in their barren 
naturalism the multitude therefore that stood by and 
heard it, said that it thundered ! others, satisfied 



The Mighty Magnet 185 



that it was something both supernatural and artic- 
ulate, though not able to make out the words, said : 
" An angel hath spoken to Him ! " Having a true, 
filial heart, however, to understand, and an ear 
attuned to catch the sound, giving to the voice and 
utterance their true signification, replying to the 
questionings that were rising in the hearts of the 
people and His disciples, with emotion deep and 
solemn Jesus answered and said : " This voice 
hath not come for My sake, but, as a final attesta- 
tion of My divine mission, and to make clear to all 
the importance of the crisis revealed by the request 
of these Greeks, for your sakes / 

"Now is the judgment, or crisis, of this world: 
now shall the prince of this world, even Satan, as 
the result of the most radical revolution in its 
history, overreaching himself and proving his own 
undoing, be cast out / 

"And, not only will Satan be thus expelled the 
domain where he hath so long held undisputed 
sway, but I, if I be lifted up front the earth, as, 
by My death, resurrection and ascension, I will be, 
by the irresistible attraction of love will draw all 
men unto Myself / ' ' 

But this He said, signifying by what death He 
should die, and the agency, by means of which He 
should finally triumph. 



The Incarnate Word 



Unable to reconcile their secular conceptions of 
the Messiah with the spiritual ideal Jesus had just 
set forth, with a tinge of contempt in their utter- 
ance, the multitude therefore ansivered Him : 
i ' We have heard out of the Law, our most sacred 
Scriptures, that the Christ abideth forever : and 
how say est Thou then, in clear opposition to this 
teaching, that 6 T^he Son of Man must be lifted 
up ' ? Who is this Son of Man ? What sort of a 
Christ would He be? " 

Not noticing the sneer, and replying to their 
question only indirectly and by allegory, address- 
ing them as a people, as a nation, warning them in 
a very solemn manner of the danger they were in 
of letting their day of grace slip away unimproved, 
earnestly and affectionately Jesus therefore said 
unto them : " Yet a little ivhile is the light among 
you. Ordering your lives aright and as the cir- 
cumstances demand, walk while ye have the light, 
that darkness overtake you not : and he that walk- 
eth in the darkness, either in the material or 
spiritual world, knoweth not whither he goeth. 
While, therefore, ye have the light, believe on the 
light, that ye may become sons of the light / ' ' 

These things spake Jesus, and, withdrawing from 
the Temple for a time, and retiring to the seclusion of 
Bethany, He departed and hid Himself from them. 



Religious Insensibility 



.87 



The ministry of such a preacher should, humanly 
speaking, have been attended with immediate and 
glorious results. But this was 

THe Perversity ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

of the Human 7 7 r 

done so many more signs before 

Heart. ' . 

them than are recorded in this 
narrative, yet, so strong were their prejudices and 
persistent their obstinacy, refusing to be convinced, 
closing their eyes to the light, they believed not on 
Him : that the word of Isaiah, the prophet, which 
had primary reference to the people of his own 
day, but which, the moral conditions being exactly 
alike, applied with equal force to the people of our 
Lord's time, might be fulfilled, which he spake, 
with reference to the prevailing unbelief, saying : 

" Lord, who hath believed our report ? And to 
whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For 
this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said 
again, as a judicial punishment inflicted upon them : 

" He hath blinded their eves, and He hardened their 
heart ; 

" Lest they should see zvith their eyes, and perceive 

with their heart, 
" And should turn, 
" And I should heal them ! " 

These things said Isaiah, because, as he telleth 
us in his sixth chapter, having seen the Shechinah, 



The Incarnate Word 



the visible manifestation of the Divine presence, 
he saw His (Christ's) glory, who was the true She- 
chinah, the visible representative of God on earth, 
and spake of Him. 

Nevertheless, though the great majority stead- 
fastly refused to receive Jesus as the Messiah, even 
of the rulers many believed on Him as such : but 
because of the violent hostility of the Pharisees 
they did not openly confess it, lest, being excom- 
municated, they should be put out of the synagogue : 
for, not as yet having experienced any spiritual 
change, their faith in Jesus as Messiah being only 
an intellectual conviction, and not a moral force, 
they loved the glory of men more than the glory of 
God. 

And, as His last public testimony to His people, 
a short but solemn winding up of His ministry 
among them, Jesus cried and said : 
Jesus Last Puh- it ^ believeth on Me, be lie v- 

lie Witness to -* * ? , 

etn not on Me, but on Him that 

Himself. 

sent Me! 

" And he that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that 
sent Me / 

" / am come a light into the world, that whosoever 
believeth on Me may not abide in the darkness! 

t( And if any man hear My sayings, and keep them 



The True Dignity of Jesus 



not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the 
world, but to save the world! 

" He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My 
sayings, hath one that judgeth him : the word that I 
spake, the same shall judge him in the Last Day ! 

" For I spake not from Myself ; but the Father 
which sent Me, He hath given Me a com?nandment, 
what I should say, and zvhat I should speak ! 

" And I know that His commandment is life eternal : 
the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father- 
hath said unto Me, so I speak!" 



PART SECOND 



Jesus and His Own 

Now on the evening before the first day of the 
feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His 
hour was come that, having 
a Lesson m fi n j s | iec [ the work He had given 

Humility. 

Him to do, He should depart 
out of this world unto the Father, having loved 
His own which were in the world, as discovered 
by innumerable proofs, He loved them unto the end, 
as the subsequent events will abundantly show. 

And during supper on that evening, the Devil 
having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, 
Simon' } s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that 
the Father had given all things into His hands, 
and that He came forth from God, and goeth unto 
God, in the full consciousness therefore of His 
Messianic sovereignty and the divine dignity of 
His mission, teaching His disciples a much needed 
lesson in humility by giving them an amazing illus- 
tration of that grace in His own person, riseth 
190 



Peter's Precipitance 



iqi 



from supper, and layeth aside His upper or outer 
garments : and, as a servant, He took a towel and 
girded Himself. Then He poureth water into the 
basin, and began to wash the disciples 1 feet, and 
to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was 
girded ! 

So, passing from one to another in the order in 
which they were seated, He cometh first to Simon 
Peter. Always impulsive, and ready to express 
his feelings, shocked at such an apparently menial 
service on the part of his revered Master, in utter 
amazement he saith unto Him : " Lord, dost Thou 
wash my feet ? ' ' 

In a golden sentence, which in its application 
stretcheth far beyond the immediate purpose for 
which the words were spoken, and which serveth 
as a key to many mysterious events in the provi- 
dence of God, and supplieth a powerful incentive 
to faith and patience, calmly and gently Jesus an- 
swered and said unto him : " What I do thou know- 
est not now ; but thou shall know hereafter I " 

Unaffected by our Lord's explanation, his mod- 
esty and reverence now assuming the form of self- 
will and pride, carrying his resistance to the extreme 
of a positive refusal, and so substituting for his 
former question a resolute denial, he saith unto 
Him : i ' Thou shall never wash my feet I ' ' 



192 The Incarnate Word 



Self-surrender being the first condition of true 
discipleship, in a very positive way pointing out to 
Peter the serious consequence of his refusal, Jesus 
answered him : " If I wash thee not, thou hast no 
part with Me ! ' ' 

Horrified at the very thought of such conse- 
quences of his obstinacy, with characteristic impul- 
siveness, rushing from one extreme to another, but 
still in the same prescriptive spirit, with all the 
vehemence of his emotional nature, Simon Peter 
saith unto Him : 6 'Lord, not my feet only, but also 
my hands and my head I I will submit to anything 
rather than be separated from Thee ! " 

With His characteristic gentleness and patience, 
perceiving the spiritual dullness of His disciple, im- 
parting to him the needed instruction, referring to 
the well-known Jewish customs respecting ablutions, 
Jesus saith unto him : " He that is bathed in the 
laver of pardon and regeneration, in order to be 
freed from partial and superficial defilement needeth 
not save to wash his feet, but through the prin- 
ciple of holiness that is in him, the man as a man, 
is clean every whit : and ye, thus morally purified, 
are clean — but not all ! " 

For He penetrated Judas' disguise and knew 
him that should betray Him : therefore He said, 
i Ye are not all clean.'' 



Doers Alone are Blessed 193 



So when He had washed their feet, a?id taken His 
garments, and sat dozvn again, He said unto them : 
" Know ye zvhat I have done to you ? Te call Me, 
' Master,' and, ' Lord 9 : and ye say well ; for so I am. 
If I then, the Lord and the Master, have washed your 
feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I 
. have given you an example, that ye also should do as I 
have done to you. 

" Verily, verily, I say unto you, A servant is not 
greater than his lord ; neither one that is sent greater 
than He that sent him. 

" If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do 
them. 

' ' / speak not of you all : I know the character 
of those whom I have chosen : but that the scripture 
in the 41st psalm respecting the 

Treachery Mifitetl J , r . , . r . , 

treachery of intimate friends may 
be fulfilled, ' He that eateth My 

bread lifted up his heel against Me,' I say this unto 

yon . 

t i F rom henceforth I tell you before it come to 
pass, that, when it is come to pass, instead of be- 
ing a ground of stumbling, proving a support of your 
faith, ye may believe that I am what I have ever 
represented myself to be, the Messiah. 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that re- 



194 The Incarnate Word 

ceiveth whomsoever I send receiveth Me ; and he 
that receiveth Me receiveth Him that se?it Me / 1 1 

Now when Jesus had thus said, experiencing a 
shock of a religious nature, a kind of horror which 
His pure heart feeleth at the con- 

The Traitor's Dis- , . .,, . c . . 

tact with the instrument of this. 

covery and De- . 

satanic crime and the approach 

parture. L 1 

of its invisible author, He was 
troubled in the spirit, and revealing to them what 
seemed most incredible, yet with the most solemn 
assurance of its truth, and with unutterable sadness 
in His tones, said: "Verily, verily, I say imto 
you, that one of you shall betray Me ! " 

In blank amazement, too much horrified to speak, 
the disciples looked one on another, doubting of 
whom He spake ! 

There was at the table reclining in Jesus'' bosom 
one of His disciples whom Jesus loved, but who 
shall here be nameless. Simon Peter therefore, 
with characteristic forwardness and impatience, 
never suspecting himself, of course, but very de- 
sirous of knowing at once to which of them our 
Lord had reference, beckoneth to him, and by 
means of signs and gestures which he understood, 
saith unto him : " Tell us who it is of whom He 
spake. 1 1 



Satan and the Sop 



He leaning back, as he was, on Jesus' breast, 
whispering, saith unto Him : "Lord, who is it? " 

With characteristic delicacy, not mentioning the 
traitor's name, but indicating who he was by an 
act to which no one but he that asked for the in- 
formation would attach any special significance on 
account of its commonness at Oriental banquets, 
also in low tones speaking the words which ex- 
plained the act, Jesus therefore answereth, say- 
ing.: " He it is for whom I shall dip the sop, and 
give it him ! ' ' 

So when He had dipped the sop, He taketh and 
giveth it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot / 

And after the sop, yielding himself up entirely 
to his diabolical power, then Satan entered into 
him. Thenceforward Judas thought only of him- 
self \ his fancied wrongs \ his full resolve ! 

Aware of this, and knowing also that from this 
decisive moment no return for Judas was possible, 
giving him to understand that He was fully con- 
scious of his wicked purpose and that his presence 
among them was no longer tolerable ; in view of 
the fact that His "hour" had at length arrived 
and that there was no time to lose; having no 
longer any ground to spare him, pushing him, as 
it were, into the abyss, commanding him to delay 
not, but to hasten to completion the work he had 



196 The Incarnate Word 



already begun, speaking in tones loud enough to 
be heard by all, and, at the same time, looking 
with ineffable pity directly at the misguided man, 
Jesus therefore saith unto him : ' ' That thou doest, 
do quickly / ' ' 

Now no man at the table, not even he to whom the 
traitor's identity had been revealed, knew for what 
intent He spake this unto him. For some thought, 
because Judas had the bag, that Jesus said unto 
him : " Buy what things we have need of for the 
feast; " or that he should give something to the 
poor ! 

He then having received the sop went out 
straightway, at the Master's word, on his diabolical 
mission. He saw at once that Jesus knew all his 
plot, and dreaded exposure. He, at any rale, 
knew what the words of Jesus meant, if none of the 
others did. He felt himself detected and discovered, 
and for very shame got up and, leaving the com- 
pany his presence had defiled so long, went away. 

And it was night ! 

When therefore he zvas gone out, freed from the 
restraint under which He labored while the traitor 
was present, now at liberty to 
give vent to the feelings of which 

Commandment. 

He was full, addressing the 



His Valedictory Discourse 197 



Eleven, Jesus saith : "Now by the exclusion from 
His life the desire for all empty human glory, of 
which he who has just disappeared from our num- 
ber was the most stubborn representative among 
you, and by His seeking the true glory that cometh 
from God only, and which consisteth in humility 
and charity, is the Son of Man glorified, and, the 
perfection of the paternal character of God being 
manifested fully in His person and work, God is 
glorified in Him ; and, by His exaltation to His 
own right hand, God shall glorify Him in Him- 
self, and, the end being not now far distant, 
straightway shall He glorify Him / 

"Little children, yet a little while only I am 
with you : the moment of My separation from you 
is at hand. Ye shall seek Me ; and, as I said unto 
the official Jews, ' whither I go, ye cannot come 1 ; 
so now I say unto you : though your search, if in 
sorrow, will not be, like theirs, in vain. We shall 
meet again ! 

"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
love one another ; even as I have loved you, that 
ye also love one another. By this , shall all men 
know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one 
to another ! ' ' 

The disciples were but little impressed by what 



ic;8 



The Incarnate Word 



Jesus said about this 'new commandment,' their 
minds being occupied by His 

Peter's Vail i . TT . 

previous utterance about His go- 

JPredietedi • 

ing away. J^or though He had 
repeatedly told the disciples about His departure 
and the manner of it, they never realized it, and 
are startled and perplexed when He now talketh of 
His going away. Hence to relieve their minds, as 
the spokesman of them all, with the simplicity of a 
child, Simon Peter saith unto Him: " Whither 
goest Thou ? Cannot I go with Thee ? " 

At once checking and encouraging Peter, giving 
no explicit answer to his question, but graciously 
explaining a part of His meaning, Jesus answered : 
' ' Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now ; 
but thou shall follow Me afterward. The tem- 
porary separation is inevitable : the place is not yet 
prepared for thee, nor art thou, as yet, prepared for 
the place ! M 

With characteristic persistency, pressing his ques- 
tion, imagining that Jesus spake thus only because 
He believed him incapable of facing death, in the 
ardor of his zeal exaggerating the measure of his 
moral strength, but with perfect honesty of pur- 
pose, Peter saith unto Him : " Lord, why ca?inot 
I follow there even now ? I taill lay down my life 
for Thee /" 



His Valedictory Discourse 199 



Knowing Peter better than he knew himself* as- 
suring him that, even in this respect, he is still in- 
capable of accompanying Him, in His most solemn 
manner predicting the fall of His warm-hearted dis- 
ciple, and administering a timely warning, Jesus 
answer eth : " Wilt thou lay down thy life for Me ? 
Verily } , verily, I say imto thee, The cock shall not 
crow, till, disavowing any acquaintance with Me 
whatever, thou hast denied Me thrice ! ' ' 

Dazed, stunned, struck dumb by this startling 
announcement, Peter remained silent, asking no 
more questions during the rest of the evening. 

Breaking at length the protracted and painful 
silence which followed the prediction of Peter's 
denial, aware that they all shared 
in Peter's perplexity about His 
going away, extending to them 
all the same promise He had made to Peter, and 
explaining to them in what way they will be able 
to rejoin Him, cheering them by lifting their hearts 
from the gloomy present to the glorious future, for 
the first time opening Heaven to faith, speaking 
with deep but restrained emotion, addressing the 
Eleven, Jesus said : 

" Let not your heart be troubled .about what I 
have just said about My going away : Ye, of course, 



2oo The Incarnate Word 



believe in God who is over all and direct eth all ; 
but, as a cure for your despondency, I exhort you 
to believe also in Me, who am, as ye know, His 
Son and Servant to execute His will. 

" In My Father } s house, to which I go, there 
are many mansions, numerous enough to furnish 
an apartment for each and all the members of His 
redeemed children ; if it were not so, I would have 
told you ; for, as your forerunner there, I go to 
prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare 
a place for y on, ye may rest assured that I come 
again, and will receive you unto Myself ; that, 
putting an end to all separation, where I am, 
there, in an eternal and unbroken fellowship, ye 
may be also. And whither I go, ye know the way 1 1 ' 

Flatly and frankly confessing their ignorance of 
the meaning of the figurative expressions Jesus had 
used, notwithstanding all His 

•Testis the TVay to . . ,. , , 

previous instruction, the truth 

God anil Heaven. . 

being veiled from them by false 
hopes of an earthly Messianic kingdom, voicing 
the sentiments of all the rest, wishing to find out 
the way by learning the goal, Thomas saith unto 
Him : " Lord, we knoiv not whither Thou goest ; 
how, then, know we the way ? " 

Making all due allowance for their dullness in 



His Valedictory Discourse 201 



apprehending His meaning, with the view of re- 
lieving their perplexity and clarifying their spiritual 
vision, covering more ground in His answer than 
was embraced in the question, laying hold espe- 
cially on the idea of the Way, fixing their attention 
upon Himself as all, thus turning their thoughts 
from a method to a person, Jesus saith unto him : 
" / am the Way to the Father's house; and I am 
so, in that, being the means by which God is re- 
vealed to the soul and the communication of the 
life of God is effected therein, I am the Truth and 
the Life : no one cometh unto the Father, but by 
Me. If ye had known Me as His Son and Repre- 
sentative, ye would have known My Father also : 
from henceforth, after what ye have now seen and 
heard, ye know Him and have seen Him ! " 

The closing words of Jesus in reply to Thomas, 
( Ye have seen Him,' were evidently designed to 
call forth the expression of some 

Jesus the Rent , i i , i , , 

opposite thought, and to act as a 

JReveuler of the in i i 

new challenge to the inward 

Father. b 

trouble which He perceived in 
them. And precisely this was the effect they pro- 
duced. For, implying that they had not seen Him, 
and expressing the desire that, as* a pledge of the 
glorious future which Jesus had said was in reserve 



202 The Incarnate Word 



for them, an immediate vision of God might be 
vouchsafed to them, and, at the same time, giving 
voice to an aspiration which dwelleth in the deepest 
recesses of the heart of every man, and in which 
lieth the explanation of all the polytheism, panthe- 
ism, and idolatry in the world, Philip sayeth unto 
Him : " Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 
Such a vision of God is precisely what we all most 
earnestly desire, being what for the future would 
render our faith immovable ! " 

God in His essential being, however, cannot be 
seen by any mortal eye. Only mediately as His 
moral perfections are incarnated and embodied in a 
real life, in words, and acts, and spirit, is God 
visible to any human being. Now this unique 
spectacle, this perfect theophany, this visible re- 
splendence of God, the disciples had before them 
for about three years. Hence, pained and surprised 
at the want of intelligent appreciation of His self- 
revelation, as evinced by Philip's question, Jesus 
saith unto him : " Have I been so long time with you, 
and dost thou not know Me, Philip ? he that hath seen 
Me hath seen the Father ! how sayest thou, then, ' Shew 
us the Father ' f Believest thou not that I am in the 
Father, and the Father in Me ? the words that I say 
unto you I speak not from Myself : but the Father 
abiding in Me doeth His works. Believe Me that I am 



His Valedictory Discourse 



203 



in the Father, and the Father in Me ; or else believe 
Me for the very works* sake ! " 

Having been turned aside by the questions of 
Thomas and Philip from the main purpose of His 



sumeth that subject, and addeth to the promise of a 
future reunion in the Father's house that of a much 
nearer meeting, that in which He will return to 
dwell within them through the Holy Spirit and 
will continue through them here on earth the work 
which He hath Himself begun here. Turning then 
from speaking directly to Philip, and addressing 
the whole company, He continued His address 
saying: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that be- 
lieveth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also ; 
and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go 
unto the Father ! 

" And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that 
will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the 



" If ye shall ask Me anything in My name, that 
will I do ! 

" If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments ! 



Present li cue Jits 



of Christ's De- 



parture. 



conversation — the encouragement 
to be given to the disciples, in 
view of the separation which was 
distressing them — Jesus now re- 



Son ! 



204 



The Incarnate Word 



" And 1 will pray the Father, and He shall give 
you Another Comforter, that He may be with you for- 
ever, even the Spirit of Truth : Whom the world can- 
not receive ; for it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth 
Him : ye know Him ; for He abideth with you, and 
shall be in you ! 

" I will not leave you desolate : I come unto you ! 

" Tet a little while, and the world beholdeth Me no 
more ; but ye behold Me : because I live, ye shall live 
also / 

" In that day when the spirit cometh ye shall know 
that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in 
you ! 

" He that hath My commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth Me : and he that loveth Me 
shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and 
will manifest Myself unto him ! " 

The mode of the revelation of which Jesus had 
just spoken entirely perplexed the minds of the 
disciples, which were ever di- 



kingdom. Unable therefore to understand what 
Jesus had said about manifesting Himself only to 
individuals and not to all, and asking for the indi- 



The Superlative 



rected toward the outward mani- 
festations visible for all, of the 
Messiah-king and His glorious 



Privilege of 



Believers, 



His Valedictory Discourse 205 

cation of a new fact causing a change in the Mes- 
sianic program, the proof of which he thought he 
saw in the words referred to, Judas, (not Iscariot), 
saith unto Him : "Lord, what is come to pass 
that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not 
unto the world ? ' ' 

Contenting Himself with simply repeating with 
renewed emphasis what He had before said, to the 
end that the world at large is neither morally ca- 
pable nor worthy of such a manifestation of Him- 
self as that to which Jude referred, Jesus answered 
and said unto him : " If a man love Me, he will 
keep My word : and My Father will love him, and 
We will come unto him, and make our abode zvith 
him ! 

" He that loveth Me not keepeth not My words : 
and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the 
Father's Who sent Me ! 

" These things concerning our future reunion 
above and here below have I spoken unto you, 
while yet abiding zvith you. It is all I can reveal to 
you for the moment. But, if this future be still 
involved in obscurity for you, the teaching of an- 
other Master will dissipate the mists, and will explain 
to you all My promises by realizing them ; for the 
Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will 
send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and 



2o6 - The Incarnate Word 



bring to your remembrance all that I said unto 
you ! 

" Peace I leave with you ; My peace I give unto 
you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let 
not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful ! 

" Te heard how I said to you, ' I go away, and I 
come unto you' If ye loved Me, ye would have re- 
joiced, because I go unto the Father : for the Father 
is greater than I ! 

" And now I have told you before it come to pass, 
that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe ! 

" I will no more speak much with you, for the prince 
of the world cometh : and he hath nothing in Me'; but 
that the world may know that I love the Father, 
and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I 
do! 

" Arise, let us go hence." 

Having thus spoken, suiting the action to the 
word, Jesus and the Eleven at once rose and pre- 
pared to leave the room. As they stood, however, 
and before departing from the now hallowed cham- 
ber, in that moment of unutterable solemnity and 
deep feeling, His mind full of thoughts which He 
longed even yet to utter before He suffered, un- 
able, as it seemed, to bring this last interview with 
u His own" to a close, He began once more to 



His Valedictory Discourse 207 



speak. And transporting Himself in thought to 
the future when the earthly and purely internal re- 
union between Himself and them should be effected 
through His spiritual return, with a view to which 
epoch He now gave them the necessary directions, 
warnings and encouragement. Thus doing He 
spake as follows : 

" I am the True Fine, and My Father is the hus- 
bandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit, 
He taketh it away : and every 

The Vine anil , 77 7 7 r rr 

branch that beareth jruit, tie 

the Branches. 

cleanseth it, that it may bear more 

fruit. 

" Already ye are clean because of the word which 
I have spoken unto you. 

" Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch can- 
not bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine ; so 
neither can ye, except ye abide in Me. 

" I am the vine, ye are the branches : he that 
abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much 
fruit : for apart from Me ye can do nothing. 

" If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a 
branch, and is withered ; and they gather them, and 
cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 

" If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, 
ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. 



208 



The Incarnate Word 



" Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit ; and so shall ye be My disciples. 

" Even as the Father hath loved Me, I also have 
loved you : abide ye in My love. 

" If ye keep My commandments , ye shall abide in 
My love ; even as I have kept My Father' f s command- 
ments, and abide in His love. 

" These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy 
may be in you. and that your joy 

Christ's Friends. J J J J J 

may be fulfilled. 

" This is My commandment, that ye love one an- 
other, even as I have loved you. 

" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
down his life for his friends. 

" Te are My friends, if ye do the things zvhich I 
command you. 

" No longer do I call you servants ; for the servant 
knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called 
you Friends ; for all things that I heard from My Fa- 
ther I have made known unto you. 

" Te did not choose Me, but I chose you, and ap- 
pointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that 
your fruit should abide : that whatsoever ye shall ask 
of the Father in My name, He may give it you. 

" These things I command you, that ye may love one 
another. 



His Valedictory Discourse 209 



" If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath 

hated Me before it hated you. 
The Enmity of Tr r , , , , 

" If ye were of the zvorld, the 

the WovUl to t 

world would love its own : but be- 

the Church. 

cause ye are not of the world, but I 
chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth 
you. 

"Remember the word that I said unto you, ' A serv- 
ant is not greater than his lord? If they persecuted 
Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My 
word, they will keep yours also. 

" But all these things will they do unto you for My 
name's sake, because they know not Him That sent 
Me. 

(( If I had not come and spoken unto them, they 
had not had sin : but nozv they have no excuse for the it- 
sin. 

" He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. 

(( If I had not done among them the works which 
none other did, they had not had sin : but now have 
they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. 

" But this cometh to pass, that the word may be ful- 
filled that is written in their law, ' They hated Me 
without a cause? 

" But when the Comforter is come, whom I will 
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of 
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall 



2lO 



The Incarnate Word 



bear witness of Me : and ye also bear witness, because 
ye have been with Me from the beginning. 

" These things have I spoken unto you, that ye 
should not be made to stumble. 

" They shall put you out of the synagogues : yea, the 
hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that 
he offer eth service unto God. 

" And these things will they do, because tlfey have 
not known the Father, nor Me. 

" But these things have I spoken unto you, that 
when their hour is come, ye may remember them, hozv 
that I told you. 

" And these things I said not unto you from the be- 
ginning, because I was with you. 

"But now I go unto Him That sent Me ;* and none 
of you asketh Me, 'Whither goest 
The Mission of rphou? 9 But because I have spoken 

the Spirit. 77. 

these things unto you, sorrow hath 

filed your heart. 

" Nevertheless I tell you the truth ; ' It is expedient 
for you that I go away : ' for if I go not away, the 
Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I go, I will 
send Him unto you. 

" And He, when He is come, will convict the world 
in respect of Sin, and of Righteousness and of Judg- 
ment : of sin, because they believe not on Me ; of 



His Valedictory Discourse 211 



righteousness y because I go to the Father, and ye behold 
Me no more ; of judgment, because the prince of this 
world hath been judged. 

" I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye can- 
not hear them now, 

" Hozvbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, 
He shall guide you into all the truth : for He shall not 
speak from Himself ; but what things soever He shall 
hear, these shall He speak : and He shall declare unto 
ye the things that are to come. 

" He shall glorify Me : for He shall take of Mine, 
and. shall declare it unto you. 

" All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine : 
therefore said I, that He taketh of Mine, and shall 
declare it unto you. 

" A little while, and ye behold Me no more ; and 
again a little while, and ye shall see Me." 

Some of His disciples therefore said one to another, 
"What is this that He saith unto 

Sorrow Turned . , , . , . 7777 

us : 'A little while, and ye behold 

into <Toy. 

Me not ; and again a little while, 
and ye shall see Me J and, ' Because I go to the 
Father 9 P " 7'hey said therefore, " What is this that 
He saith, 6 A little while 9 ? We 'know not what He 
saith. 99 Jesus perceived that they were desirous to ask 
Him, and He said unto them : "Do ye inquire among 



212 The Incarnate Word 



yourselves concerning this, that 1 said, ' A little while, 
and ye behold Me not, and again a little while, and ye 
shall see Me 9 ? 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep 
and lament, but the world shall rejoice : ye shall be 
sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. 

" A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, be- 
cause her hour is come : but when she is delivered of the 
child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy 
that a man is born into the world. 

" And ye therefore now have sorrow : but I will see 
you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no 
one taketh away from you. 

" And in that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the 
Father, He will give it you in My name. 

" Hitherto ye have asked nothing in My name : ask, 
and ye shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled ! 

" These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs : 
the hour cometh, when I shall no more speak unto 
you in proverbs, but shall tell you 

Convinced, at Mjast. . 7 _ 7 

plainly of the rather. 
" In that day ye shall ask in My name : and I say 
not unto you, that- 1 will pray the Father for you ; for 
the Father Hirnself loveth you, because ye have loved 
Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father. 



His Valedictory Discourse 213 



" I came out from the Father, and am come into the 
world : again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father" 

His disciples say, " Lo, now speakest thou plainly, 
and speakest no proverb. Now know we that Thou 
knowest all things, and needest not that any man should 
ask Thee : by this we believe that Thou earnest forth 
from God!" 

Glad to hear this confession, rejoiced to know 
from their own lips that they had at length come to 
such a conclusion respecting 

Warning anil Con- , , . - ., 

Him, yet aware that their faith 

solation. 

was as yet only m its formative 
state, and that in a short time it would be put to a 
severe test, warning them against over-confidence 
in themselves, Jesus answered them: "Do ye 
now believe ? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is 
come, even this very night, that ye shall be scattered, 
eveiy one to his own place of refuge, and shall 
leave Me alone : and yet I am not alone, because 
the Father is with Me ! 

" These things have I spoken unto you now, and 
in these solemn circumstances, that, being pre- 
warned, ye may have peace ! 

"In the world ye have tribulation : but be of 
good cheer : I have overcome the world, and in Me 
ye also shall prove victorious I " 



The Lord's Prayer 



These things in conclusion of his prophetic minis- 
try, as His valedictory discourse to His own, spake 
Jesus ; and then, passing from the prophetic to 
the priestly functions of His Messianic office, and 
offering up a prayer such as, till then, Heaven had 
never received from earth — a prayer in which He 
pleaded as if He had already reached the altar of 
incense above, and had actually entered on His 
office of intercessor there, and in which He clasped 
the eternal throne as He would save His people by 
that prayer alone — and suiting the action to the 
word, lifting up His eyes to Heaven, He said: 
" Father, the Hour is come ; glorify Thy Son, that the 
Son may glorify Thee : even as 

For Himself. rT11 TT . i7 

1 nou gavest Him authority over 
all flesh, that whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to 
them He should give eternal life. 

" And this is life eternal, that they should know 
Thee the Only True God, and Him whom Thou didst 
send, even Jesus Christ. 

214 



The Lord's Prayer 



215 



" I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished 
the work which Thou hast given Me to do. 

" And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine 
Own Self zvith the glory which I had with Thee be- 
fore the world was, 

" I manifested Thy Name unto the men whom Thou 
gavest Me out of the world : Thine they were, and 
Thou gavest them to Me ; and they 

For His Own. 

nave kept 1 ny word. 

" Now they know that all things whatsoever Thou 
hast given Me are from Thee : for the words which 
Thou gavest Me I have given unto them ; and they 
received them, and knew of a truth that I came forth 
from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me. 

" I pray for them ; I pray not for the world, but for 
those whom Thou hast given Me ; for they are Thine : 
and all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are 
Mine : and I am glorified in them. 

" And I am no more in the world, and these are in 
the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep 
them in Thy Name which Thou hast given Me, that 
they may be One, even as We are. 

"While I was with them, I kept them in Thy 
Name which Thou hast given Me : and I guarded 
them, and not one of them perished, but the son of per- 
dition ; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 



216 The Incarnate Word 



" But now I come to Thee ; and these things 1 speak 
in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in 
themselves. 

" I have given them Thy word ; and the world 
hated them, because they are not of the world, even as 1 
am not of the world. 

" I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the 
world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the 
Evil One. 

" They are not of the world, even as I am not of the 
world. 

" Sanctify them in the truth : Thy word is truth. 

" As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so 
sent I them into the world. 

" And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they 
themselves also may be sanctified in truth. 

" Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also 
that believe on Me through their word ; that they may 
all be one ; even as Thou, Father, 

Fot all JBelievets. ^ j y 7 ^^ that 

they also may be in Us : that the world ?nay believe 
that Thou didst send Me. 

" And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have 
given unto them ; that they may be One, even as We 
are One ; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be. 
perfected into one ; that the world may know that Thou 



The Lord's Prayer 



217 



didst send Me, and lovedst them, even as Thou lovedst 
Me. 

" Father, that which Thou hast given Me, I will 
that, where I am, they also may be with Me ; that they 
may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for 
Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world. 

" O Righteous Father, the world knew Thee not, 
but I knew Thee ; and these knew that Thou didst 
send Me ; and I made known unto them Thy name, and 
will make it known ; that the love wherewith Thou 
lovedst Me may be in them and I in them" 



PART THIRD 



The Passion 

When Jesus had spoken these words. He went 
forth with His eleven disciples over the brook 
Kidron, where at the foot of the 

The Betrayal find Ayr r /^v 7 

Mount 01 Olives was a garden 
called Gethsemane, into the 
which He entered \ Himself and His disciples. 

Now Judas also, which betrayed Him, knew 
the place : for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with 
His disciples. 

Judas then, sure of his prey, making exaggerated 
preparations for His arrest, in anticipation of pos- 
sible resistance either on the part of Jesus Himself, 
whose ability to defend Himself the traitor well 
knew, or on that of the Galileans who were supposed 
to be His friends, having through his masters of 
the Sanhedrim received from the governor the well- 
known band of Roman soldiers, which was sta- 
tioned as a garrison in the citadel of Antonia, hard 
by the Temple, and officers of the Temple from the 
218 



The Manliness of Jesus 



2\q 



chief priests and the Pharisees, cometh hither with 
their superfluous equipment of lanterns and torches 
and weapons ; thus conveying the impression that 
it was a most hazardous enterprise in which he 
was engaged, and that He was a most dangerous 
and desperate criminal he was about to arrest. 

Jesus therefore, knowing all the things that were 
coming upon Him, having by prayer and supplica- 
tion prepared Himself for the ordeal, with the 
calmness and courage born of self-surrender, went 
forth to meet those who had come to take Him, 
and in order that the purpose of their coming 
might be definitely understood, with the view of 
shielding the disciples, addressing His would-be 
captors, saith unto them : " Whom seek ye ? " 

Failing to recognize Him, with a tinge of con- 
tempt in the title by which they designated the ob- 
ject of their search, they answered Him, saying: 
"Jesus of Nazareth ! " 

In prompt response, acknowledging His identity, 
Jesus saith unto them : "I am Jesus of Naza- 
reth ! " 

And Judas also, which betrayed Him, was 
standing with them when He thus discovered 
Himself to them, and identified Him as the person 
they sought. 

When therefore, acknowledging His identity, He 



220 



The Incarnate Word 



said unto them, ' I am Jesus of Nazareth,' over- 
awed by His serene majesty, recoiling at His 
simple words, as though the lightning had suddenly 
flashed in their faces, panic-stricken, in a paroxysm 
of amazement and dread, they went backward, 
and fell to the ground / thus clearly showing His 
superiority to all His foes, and that, if He had de- 
sired to avoid arrest, He could easily have done 
so. 

When they had risen from the ground and re- 
covered their composure, perceiving their hesi- 
tancy to execute their commission, with the view of 
securing from them a definite statement as to the 
person they were sent to take, and to encourage 
them to do their orifice, again therefore He asked 
them, saying : " Whom seek ye ? " 

And distinctly declaring that it was He, and He 
alone, they had a commission to arrest, repeating 
only the name they had been taught, in reply to 
His second inquiry they said as before : "Jesus 
of Nazareth ! " 

With great calmness and dignity, surrendering 
Himself to their hands, at the same time stipulat- 
ing for the liberty of His disciples, Jesus an- 
swered : "I told you that I am Jesus of Nazareth, 
the person ye are commissioned to arrest. If 
therefore ye seek Me, let these go. their way / " 



Passive Resistance 



221 



Thus did Jesus act the part of the Good Shep- 
herd, that the word might be fulfilled which in His 
intercessory prayer He spake, " Of those whom 
Thou hast given Me I lost not one ! " 

Simon Peter therefore, warm-hearted, impulsive, 
zealous, resolved that, if he could prevent it, his 



harmful, having a sword, drew it, and struck the 
high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear / 

Now the servant'' s name was Malchus. 

Administering to His impulsive disciple a firm 
and decided rebuke, in utter disapproval of defend- 
ing or propagating the truth by means of carnal 
weapons, and setting to His followers for all time 
an example of passive resistance, Jesus therefore 
said unto Peter: i( Put up the sword into the 
sheath : the cup of humiliation and suffering which 
the Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?'' 

So, when it became evident that there was no 
further danger to be apprehended, the band and 



treating Him as a common criminal, bound Him, 



Peter anil Mis 



Sivorfl. 



Master should not meet any such 
fate, making a resistance now as 
useless as it was hopeless and 



The A.rrest. 



the chief captain, and the officers 
of the Jews seized Jesus, and 



222 



The Incarnate Word 



and led Him to Annas first ; for he ivas father- 
in-law to Caiaphas, which was titular high priest 
that year. 

Now Caiaphas, it will be remembered, was he 
which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was ex- 
pedient that one man should die for the people. 
Jesus had therefore nothing to expect from a judge 
who had thus decided on His death in advance. 

And upon His arrest in Gethsemane Simon Peter 
followed Jesus, though at a distance, and so did 
the author of this narrative, 
e ei s us ano ther disciple, all the others 

Denial. r 

having forsaken Him and fled, 
even as He had said ! 

Now that nameless disciple was known unto the 
high priest, and entered in with Jesus into the 
court of the high priest ; but Peter, in whom love 
and fear, courage and cowardice, were struggling 
for the mastery, was standing at the door without, 
not venturing to go in. So the other disciple which 
was known unto the high priest, seeing the unsuit- 
ableness of his brother disciple's situation, with a 
well-meant, though mistaken kindness, went out and 
spake unto her that kept the door, and, explaining 
that he was a friend of his, brought in Peter. 

The maid therefore that kept the door, seeing 



Peter s First Denial 



that he was a friend of the other who was known 
to be such, not in any menacing manner, but ask- 
ing simply for information and as a matter of curi- 
osity, saith unto Peter: "Art thou also one of 
This Man s disciples ?" 

Surprised by the question, startled, fearful of 
the consequences of acknowledging such relation- 
ship, his courage all gone, answering with a point- 
blank lie, he saith : "I am not .' " 

Now when Peter entered the high priest's hall, 
the servants and the officers were standing there, 
having made a fire of coals : for it was cold ; and 
they were warming themselves : and Peter also, 
joining the company, was with them, standing and 
warming himself, as many half-hearted followers of 
Jesus in lieu of genuine spiritual vitality still seek 
to warm themselves at the fires of the world's kin- 
dling ! 

With the view, and in the hope, of hearing 
from His own lips something which he could con- 
strue as a ground of His con- 
jesus he/ote ^em nation, the high priest there- 

Annus, 

fore asked Jesus as to the 
number, class and character of His disciples, and 
as to the substance and general tenor of His teach- 
ing. 



224 The Incarnate Word 



Well aware of the purpose of His inquisitor's 
examination, with becoming dignity remonstrating 
against the gross injustice of seeking to make Him 
criminate Himself, and throwing the burden of 
proof on the prosecution where it properly belonged, 
referring to His public life and ministry, with great 
boldness and dignity Jesus answered him : " I have 
spoken openly to the world ; I ever taught in the 
synagogues, and in the Temple adjoining this place, 
where all the Jews come together ; and in secret 
spake I nothing. Why askest thou Me ? ask them 
that have heard Me, what I spake unto them : be- 
hold, these know the things which I said. Call 
these therefore as your witnesses ! " 

And when He said this, unaccustomed to hear 
prisoners thus defend themselves, thinking He had 
transcended the bounds of propriety, and taking 
it upon himself to maintain the dignity of the 
court, coarsely taxing Him with impertinence and 
disrespect, one of the officers standing by struck 
Jesus with his hand, saying as he did so: " An- 
swer est Thou the high priest so ?" 

Administering a calm and dignified reproof not 
only to the petty official who smote Him, but also 
to the chief culprit, the high priest himself, who 
interrogated Him, Jesus answered him: " If I 
have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil in a just 



Peter s Second Denial 



22'^ 



and orderly way becoming a court of law ; but if, 
on the contrary, I have spoken well, why, thyself 
violating the proprieties of this place, smitest thou 
Me?" 

Annas therefore, having adjudged Him guilty, 
though no witness had been brought against Him, 
sent Him bound unto his unscrupulous son-in-law, 
Caiaphas the legal high priest, for formal arraign- 
ment and condemnation. 

Now while this alleged investigation was going 
on, as already stated, Simon Peter was standing 
by the fire and warming himself 
peter s Fail. . r com p an y w j t j 1 t ] ie officers and 

others who were present at this midnight trial. 
From something in his manner that led them to 
think so, in a question and tone evincing no kindly 
disposition, they said therefore unto him, as she 
who admitted him had done before: "Art thou 
also one of His disciples ? ' ' 

Feeling sure that nothing but death now awaited 
his Master, in order to escape the consequences of 
sustaining any close relation to Him, with an evil 
consistency, backing up his first falsehood with a 
bolder lie, he denied and said : " I am not / " 

One of the servants of the high priest, being a 
kinsman of him whose ear Peter cut off, roused 



226 



The Incarnate Word 



by hearing this strong denial to fix his attention 
more closely upon him, and recognizing him, with 
much warmth, addressing him, saith : "Thou liest ! 
Did not I see thee in the garden with Him ? ' ' 

Going from bad to worse, with the swift descent 
of sin, a first and a second fall preparing for a third 
and still deeper one, Peter therefore with cursing 
and swearing, adding profanity to lying, denied 
again : and straightway in exact fulfillment of 
the prophecy of Jesus, the cock crew I 

After the trial before the high priest, an account of 
which is not here given, and which resulted, as was 
foreshadowed, in His condem- 
esus Be/ore nat j on fj ie y i ea{ ] T esus therefore 

Pilate. . y . J \ 

from Caiaphas into the Pretonum 
or palace of the Roman governor, that their find- 
ing in His case might be ratified by that official, 
and the sentence of death which they had imposed 
upon Him might be executed after the Roman 
manner of disposing of criminals guilty of any 
capital offence — crucifixion ! 

And it was early when they led Jesus before 
Pilate, being about seven or eight o'clock in the 
morning : and they themselves, with that false con- 
scientiousness which allovveth wicked men to be 
exceedingly zealous about forms and ceremonies 



Jesus Before Pilate 



227 



and trifling externals in religion, when deliberately 
committing some gross and enormous sin, entered 
not into the governor's palace, he being a Gentile, 
that they might not be ceremonially defiled, but, in 
accordance with the requirements of the law, might 
eat the passover. 

Aware of the scruples of the Jews, which he 
held in the utmost contempt, that would not per- 
mit them to enter his palace, through fear of de- 
filement, as a politic and necessary concession to 
those he governed, going into the courtyard, Pilate 
therefore went out unto them, and, as required by 
the well-known Valerian law among the Romans, 
which made it unlawful to judge or condemn any 
one without first hearing the charge against him 
stated, to the surprise of His accusers, saith : 
' ' What accusation bring ye against This Man ? ' ' 

Chagrined and quite taken aback with the 
course Pilate had seen fit to follow, having expected 
that, as a favor to them, he would simply ratify 
their sentence and order it to be carried out, af- 
fecting an air of independence and wounded 
dignity, as if to intimidate the governor, skillfully, 
diplomatically, yet with a proud, haughty and 
supercilious tone and manner, they answered and 
said unto him : "If This Man were not an evil- 
doer, we should not have delivered Him up to thee ! ' ' 



228 The Incarnate Word 



His Roman instinct of justice causing him to re- 
sent so ignominious a proposition, declining to be 
an executioner where he had not been a judge, 
seizing upon their words as a means of relieving him- 
self from all responsibility, it being evident to him that 
it was no case for his tribunal, and so taking them 
on their own terms, and remitting the case to them 
as falling entirely within their jurisdiction, respond- 
ing to their superciliousness with superb contempt, 
Pilate therefore said unto them : " Take Hun 
yourselves, and judge Him according to your law ; 
punishing Him within the limits of your competency, 
of course ! ' ' 

Forced to confess their own national dependence 
and humiliation, giving Pilate to understand that it 
was a capital offence of which Jesus was guilty, but 
that, being a subjugated people, they had not the 
authority to execute the sentence befitting the crime, 
and being compelled therefore to bring the matter 
to him, the Jews said unto him.: " It Is not law- 
ful for us to put any man to death : and This Man 
is worthy of death, for < we found Him perverting 
the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to 
Caesar, and saying that He is Himself a King ! ' " 

Now if the Jews at this time had been their own 
masters, Jesus would have undergone the Jewish, 
and not the Roman punishment ; He would have 



Jesus Before Pilate 



22C) 



been stoned ; but in such case He would not have 
been lifted up upon the cross, as was the case, that 
the word of Jesus might be fulfilled, which He 
spake signifying by what manner of death He should 
die. 

The charge of sedition and treason which the 
official Jews laid at Jesus' door was entirely too 
serious to be overlooked by the Roman governor. 
For the purpose of satisfying himself as to the truth 
or falsity of this charge, Pilate therefore desiring to 
examine Him alone, leaving the courtyard, entered 
again into his own private apartments within the 
palace, and called aloud to Jesus to follow him 
thither, and when within, in a tone of mingled 
surprise and pity, He said unto Him : "Art thou 
the King of the Jews, as the rulers of Thy people 
allege Thou dost make Thyself? Dost Thou really 
lay claim to that title? " 

Before replying directly to Pilate's question, our 
Lord very properly wished to know the exact 
nature of the count in the indictment to which He 
was asked to plead. And in order to be satisfied 
as to this it was necessary that He should know the 
reason and motive that prompted the governor to 
put to Him such an inquiry. Hence, with the 
view of drawing Pilate out, Jesus answered : 
u Say est thou this of thyself, because of thy per- 



230 



The Incarnate Word 



sonal knowledge of any treasonable transaction on 
My part, or, using a term capable of a double 
sense, attaching a political meaning to a religious 
word, did others, making this charge against Me 
here to-day, tell it thee concerning Me ? ' ' 

Firing up at the very idea that a high-minded, 
noble Roman, like himself, should know anything 
at all about what seemed to him the mere super- 
stitions of a people he and everybody else de- 
spised, and not perceiving the nature of the dis- 
tinction Jesus made, with the utmost scorn and 
contempt, Pilate answered: " Am I a Jeiv, 
that I should be acquainted with the subtleties and 
superstitions of Thy people ? I have not, however, 
I may say, of my own motion asked Thee about 
Thy pretended royalty, having no personal knowl- 
edge of anything whatever that would afford any 
reasonable ground for the charge Thine enemies 
make against Thee, but it does not therefore follow 
that Thou art innocent. Thine own natio?i and 
the chief priests, the leaders of Thy people, de- 
livered Thee unto me as a person dangerous to the 
State : what hast Thou done to afford ground 
for this accusation? What is the explanation 
of this unnatural and unpatriotic antipathy to 
Thee?" 

With this explanation the way was clear to 



Jesus Before Pilate 



231 



reply to Pilate's question. With great dignity and 
majesty therefore Jesus answered : 

"It is true that I am the King of the Jews, but 
not in the sense that thou dost attach to that word, 
or that these Mine enemies for their own wicked 
ends have seen fit to put upon it in delivering Me 
to thee. My kingdom is not of this world, but is 
entirely spiritual, whose domain is the hearts and 
consciences and wills of men : if My kingdom 
were of this world, like all earthly empires, then 
ivould My servants fight, that I should not be 
delivered to the Jews : but now, being neither 
earthly as to its origin or purpose, is My kingdom 
not of this world ; albeit it is realized and devel- 
oped here on the earth. From this then thou 
mayest judge how much of truth there is in the 
charge Mine enemies bring against Me." 

Having fully expected that Jesus would abjure all 
claims to royalty, surprised as well as disappointed, 
with a tinge of irony in his words, Pilate therefore 
said unto Him : "Art Thou a King then ? It is, 
after all, not false, the claim that is imputed to 
Thee?" 

Modestly assenting to and affirming for Himself 
the truth of the governor's words, and then pro- 
ceeding to show the nature of His kingdom, and 
in what sense He is a King, Jesus answered : 



2)2 The Incarnate Word 



" Thou say est that I am a King. I accept that 
title. To this end have I been born, and to this 
end am I come into the world, that I should bear 
witness unto the Truth. My appeal is to the uni- 
versal testimony of conscience ; for every one that 
is of the truth heareth My voice ! ' ' 

Disgusted with the conflicting claims of the vari- 
ous schools of philosophy and the rival sects of 
religion, in no mood then for the discussion of 
moral problems, bringing the interview to an abrupt 
close with a question which breathes the spirit 
of frivolous scepticism, Pilate saith unto Him : 
" What is truth?" 

And when he had said this, suiting the action to 
the word, and not waiting for an answer, he went 
out again unto the Jews, and as 

Jesus ftnil i i. r i • • 

the result of his examination, 

Karabbas. 

looking upon Jesus as a mere 
harmless enthusiast, he saith unto them: "As a 
Roman magistrate, / find no crime in Him, being 
guilty of no offence against the laws of the empire, 
however He may have transgressed yours. But" 
thinking he had hit upon a plan by which to at 
once appease the Jews and spare Jesus, whom as 
an upright judge he should have promptly dis- 
charged, counting upon the popular favor, and re- 



Jesus Before Pilate 253 

ferxing the matter to their own clemency, he went 
on to say, " Ye have a custom, that I should re- 
lease unto you one at the Passover, will ye there- 
fore that 7, treating Him as a criminal, though 
really innocent, release unto you the King of the 
Jews ? the only rival ye will ever have to oppose 
Caesar, and whom it would be a scandal to your 
nation to kill ! ' ' 

Instead, however, of calling for the release of 
Jesus, as Pilate had confidently expected, and 
which, if left to themselves, the multitude would 
have done; but, persuaded by. the hierarchy, who 
were bent upon His death, in their fierce fanatical 
fury they cried out therefore again, as they had 
previously done, in response to the appeal of Pilate : 
6 * Not This Man, hut Bar abbas ! ! " 

Now Barabbas ivas a robber, a notable crimi- 
nal, guilty of the very offences with which they had 
unjustly, falsely, accused Jesus ! ! 



Then Pilate therefore, weakly yielding to the 
clamor of the multitude, in the vain hope that a 
sight of Him so terribly punished, 

Jesus Scourged , _ . 

beaten, bleeding, and torn with 

and Mocked. 

rods, would so appease the wrath 
of the Jews, that they would be willing to let Him 
go free, took Jesus, and caused Him to be scourged, 



234 



The Incarnate Word 



And, with Pilate's permission also, aiming their 
mockery, however, not so much at Jesus person- 
ally, as at the whole nation, despised and detested 
by the Romans, and of whose pretensions to uni- 
versal empire it was intended to be a parody, a 
burlesque imitation, the soldiers plaited a crown 
* of thorns, and put it on His head, and arrayed 
Him i7i a purple garment ; and they came unto 
Him, and in mock homage, kneeling before Him, 
turning into ridicule the royal hopes of His people, 
said: "Hail, King of the Jews, a pretty rival 
of Caesar Thou art, to be sure ! " and in the very 
wantonness and license of that cruelty which the 
spirit of ancient paganism permitted to be inflicted 
on a condemned man, they struck Him with the 
rods they had in their hands / / 

And, leaving the palace into which he had re- 
tired, and whence he witnessed the scourging, the 
maltreatment and the mockery, 

Pilate 9 s Unavail- n - 7 , , , • , ,1 

Pilate ivent out again into the 

ing Pleas. ' 

open court, and, representing the 
ordeal through which Jesus had been put as an 
inquiry by torture which failed to elicit any further 
confession, appealing but in vain to the sense of 
humanity and the sense of justice in His accusers 
in the hope that they would not further press their 



Jesus Before Pilate 255 

charge, and let Him go, saith unto them : " Behold, 
I bring Him out to you, that ye may know that I 
find 110 crime in Him ! " 

Jesus therefore came out of the Pretorium, fol- 
lowing His judge again to the courtyard into the 
presence of the people, wearing the crown of thorns 
and the purple garment, all wounded and bleed- 
ing. And, with a mingled respect and pity for 
Jesus and a bitter sarcasm with reference to the 
absurd part the Jews imputed to Him, turning to 
the mute and unresisting Sufferer at his side, Pilate 
saith unto them : ' Behold The Man / ' 

" This is He whom ye say maketh Himself a 
King, and whom ye importune me to put to death. 
Surely your demands may be satisfied by what I 
have already done to Him. Is He not humiliated 
and punished enough ? " 

When therefore the chief priests and the officers 
saw Him, the very sight of their victim redoubling 
their fury, instead of rousing their pity, as their an- 
swer to Pilate's half-measures, emboldened by his 
previous concessions, persisting in pushing matters 
to extremity, rending the astonished air with the 
single blood-curdling word, they cried out, saying : 
' ' Crucify ! Crucify I ! ' ' 

Full of indignation at an exhibition of inhuman- 
ity so outrageous, and vexed by the failure of this 



2}6 The Incarnate Word 



last expedient to secure the release of Jesus, refer- 
ring, as before, the matter to their own action, 
himself declining to be a participant in such a 
foul murder, giving expression to a noble emotion, 
Pilate saith unto them: u Take Him yourselves, 
and crucify Him, if ye will : for, as for me, / find 
no crime in Him 1 ' ' 

Quick as a flash, taking Pilate at his word, and 
changing the ground upon which they demanded 
the execution of Jesus from treason to blasphemy, 
seeing that they could not think of using the im- 
punity that Pilate offered them, owing to the fear 
that the whole thing might miscarry, the Jews an- 
swered him : ' ' We have a law, and by that law 
He ought to die, because, being but a man, He 
made Himself the Son of God ! As a subject peo- 
ple therefore we demand at your hands the execu- 
tion of that penalty in this case ! M 

Everything had conspired to produce upon the 
governor's mind the impression that in Jesus he 
had before him no ordinary prisoner, insomuch 
that he was actually afraid because of what he had 
done to Him. When Pilate therefore heard this 
saying of the Jews, in which they brought against 
Him the new charge of blasphemy, he was the 
more afraid ; confirming, as it did, a dreadful 
presentiment which was more and more forming 



Jesus Before Pilate 



237 



itself within him : what if this Extraordinary Man 
were really a divine being who had appeared on 
earth, a god in human form, as the heathen super- 
stitions and his mythological recollections would 
readily suggest to him? What if it should turn out 
that he had actually inflicted severe corporal pun- 
ishment upon one of the deities, and subjected 
Him to other great indignities ? No wonder Pilate 
became really frightened and uncomfortable • nor 
that, laboring under this awful apprehension, in 
order that he may converse with Jesus privately re- 
specting the matter, leaving the crowd outside, he 
entered into the palace again, and calling Him to 
follow him, as before, in his investigation directing 
his inquiry as to His origin, saith unto Jesus : 
" Whence art Thou ? Art Thou from the earth or 
from Heaven ? from high Olympus or of our com- 
mon human stock ? ' ' 

But, since the question as to His origin had 
nothing whatever to do with His guilt or innocence 
respecting the original charge the Jews brought 
against Him, resolved that His case should be de- 
cided by Pilate on its merits, and that he should 
either dismiss Him as the innocent man he had de- 
clared Him to be, or take the responsibility of 
crucifying Him, the Son of God, His crime thus 
becoming His punishment, Jesus gave him no an- 



238 The Incarnate Word 



swer ; though His silence was in reality an answer ; 
for if the claim the Jews had accused Him of mak- 
ing had not been well-founded, He could not have 
failed to deny it. 

Incensed at what he regarded as contemptuous 
treatment on the part of Jesus, his momentary 
tenderness turning into a towering passion, reas- 
suming all his haughtiness as judge and Roman 
governor, Pilate saith unto Him : " Speakest Thou 
not unto me ? Know est Thou not that I have poiver 
to release Thee, and have poiver to crucify Thee, 
and that Thou art therefore entirely at my 
mercy ? ' ' 

Assuming also a dignity befitting the situation, 
taking the position of judge of His judge, or rather 
of all His judges; and as if He were already seated 
on His tribunal, weighing in His infallible scales 
both Pilate and Caiaphas and all the hierarchy, yet 
extenuating rather than seeking to aggravate Pilate's 
part in the dark transaction, speaking now and for 
the last time during the trial, Jesus answered 
Him : " Thou speakest of power, as though I were 
* absolutely at thy disposal ; but as a Roman, thou 
coulde st have no power against Me, except it were 
given thee from above, God having subjected the 
Jewish people to Roman domination : therefore 
Caiaphas, he that, as the representative of the San- 



Jesus Before Pilate 



hedrim, delivered Me unto thee, despite the many 
proofs given him of My Divine mission, hath 
greater sin ! ' ' 

Upon this, far from being irritated by Jesus' an- 
swer, but the rather being profoundly impressed 
with the majesty that breatheth in it, Pilate sought 
to release Him : all his previous efforts looking to 
that end being as nothing in comparison with those 
he made from now on : but perceiving Pilate's pur- 
pose, stopping him short in his weak endeavors, 
bringing into play a weapon they had resolved not 
to use except in the last extremity — so ignoble was 
it in their view both for him who was its object and 
for those who employed it — personal intimidation— 
insinuating that clemency to Jesus would be treason 
to the emperor, and intimating that His release 
will be followed by a complaint to Rome, the Jews 
cried out : " If thou release This Man, thou art not 
C cesar's friend : every one that maketh himself a 
king in any character whatsoever speaketh against 
or opposeth Ccesar / ' ' 

That settled it. Before the threat it implied, the 
judge who was already so long renouncing his own 
proper part, boweth his head and 

Jesus Delivered , ,, T . 7 ttt , 

submitteth. ror when Pilate 

to he Crucified. 7 r . 

therefore, whose official record, 



240 The Incarnate Word 

as he well knew, was none of the best, heard these 
words, opposing no further resistance to the de- 
mands of the bloodthirsty Jews, but promptly, on 
the word, returning to the palace where he had left 
Him while making his final efforts with His accusers, 
he brought Jesus out, and, as there remained noth- 
ing else to be done, for the purpose of pronouncing 
sentence, he sat down on the judgment-seat in the 
courtyard at a place called " The Pavement' 1 from 
its character as a mosaic, but in Hebrew, from its 
elevated position, Gabbatha. 

Now it was the Preparation of the Passover : 
and it was about the sixth hour. And, full of bitter 
mortification at the humiliating part they were 
compelling him to play, venting the rage and sore- 
ness of his heart in bitter taunts, but directing his 
sarcasm more toward them than to Jesus, pointing 
to the wounded and mocked Prisoner before him, 
as alone fit to represent them, with cutting irony he 
saith unto the Jews : ' ' Behold your King 1 n , 

They therefore, the sight of their victim and the 
words of Pilate increasing their fury, impatient of 
any further delay or trifling, with one loud, fierce, 
relentless, obstinate, universal shout, demanding 
His immediate execution, cried out: " Aivay 
with Him ! away with Him ! ! crucify Him ! ! ! " 

The irresolute man, now completely unnerved 



Jesus Before Pilate 241 



and alarmed, yielding to a popular clamor he could 
no longer safely resist, and bowing before a storm 
he could not control, but avenging himself for the 
act of baseness to which they compel him, with 
withering sarcasm Pilate saith unto them : " What ! 
Shall I crucify your King ? Is it really your wish 
and desire that I, a Roman, shall order the King 
of the Jews to be put to an ignominious death? 
Shall I, I ask you again, crucify your King? " 

Flinging to the winds every national impulse, 
formally abdicating every Messianic hope, renounc- 
ing the faith by which the nation had lived, giving 
the lie to their own boasted declaration of inde- 
pendence of foreign powers, and proclaiming 
themselves vassals of the odious Roman Empire, 
suffering themselves to be carried away by their 
hatred of Jesus, in a fit of desperation, the chief 
priests answered : " We have no king but 
Ccesar ! ' ' 

After this, there was nothing more to be said. 
Israel, through its representatives, by confessing 
themselves dependents of Rome, had committed 
national suicide. Then therefore, having washed 
his hands in their presence, thus symbolically ab- 
solving himself from all responsibility for the act, 
as he erroneously supposed, and the Jews on their 
part having assumed the same, taking His blood 



242 The Incarnate Word 



upon themselves and their posterity, he delivered 
Him unto them to be crucified, the Roman execu- 
tioners being only the blind instruments of the 
judicial murder which is about to be committed. 



The Crucifixion 

The Jews had now at length their hated Victim 
within their power, with the necessary authority to 
work their will upon Him. They 
The Tin ee Jesus therefore as Pilate de- 

livered Him unto them, a de- 
clared enemy of Rome, a rival of the Caesars, and, 
without wasting any time, led Him aAvay to be 
crucified. 

And accordingly, in carrying out the usual 
program of execution, He went out of the city, 
bearing the cross for Hijnself, tinto the place which, 
from its shape, its rounded form and bare aspect, 
is called "The Place of a Skull" but which is 
called in Hebrew Golgotha, that is, rolling : zvhere 
they crucified Him, and with Him two others, on 
either side one, and Jesus in the midst / 

According to the Roman custom, the condemned 
person carried himself, or there was carried before 
him, on the way to the place of 

The Suj>ersci'ii>- . . . , . , 

execution, an inscription which 

Zion on the Cross. . . . . 

contained the indication of his 
243 



244 The Incarnate Word 



crime, and which was afterward fastened to the 
cross. 

And taking advantage of this custom to stigma- 
tize the Jews in still further revenge for the base 
advantage they had taken of him, Pilate wrote a 
title also, and caused them to put it on the cross. 
And in that title there was written this declaration, 
proclaiming even for the last time the great truth 
so odious to that people : 

"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 

This title therefore read many of the Jews from 
all parts of the world : for the place where Jesus 
was crucified was nigh to the city : and it was 
written in the languages of the three principal peo- 
ples of the world : in the national Hebrew, and in 
the official Latin, and in the cosmopolitan Greek. 

Wounded to the quick by the governor's thrust, 
indignant at the supposed insult thus offered to 
their nation, and vexed at the implied reflection on 
themselves, with the view of getting him to change 
the inscription, the chief priests of the Jews there- 
fore said to Pilate : ' ' Write not, ' The King of 
the Jews, 1 but that, 'He said, I am King of the 
Jezus ' / " 

Exhibiting now that firm resolution, that in- 
flexibility of character which would have saved him 



A Prophecy Fulfilled 



245 



much mortification and trouble had he called it 
into exercise earlier in the proceedings, resolved not 
to further gratify the Jews, in peremptory refusal to 
comply with their request, curtly, laconically, 
Pilate answered them saying: "What I have 
written, I have written / ' ' 

The Roman law adjudged to the executioners, 
as their perquisites, the garments of the condemned. 

The soldiers therefore, when 

The Seamless ,77 7 -j: j r 7 rr- 

they had crucified Jesus, took His 

Robe. 7 r 

garments, and made jour parts, 
to every soldier a part, this being the number in 
the detachment detailed for such purpose; and 
they took also the coat or tunic : now the coat was 
without seam, woven from the top throughout. 
And since, from its nature, the tunic could not be 
divided without being destroyed, and was too 
precious to be placed in one of the parts, they said 
therefore one to another : < ' Let us not rend it, 
but cast lots for it, whose it shall be /" 

Now when the soldier executioners said this, all 
unconsciously they fulfilled the scripture, a 
prophecy written in the 2 2d Psalm a thousand years 
before, which saith : 

" They parted My garments among them, 
And upon My vesture did they cast lots." 



246 



The Incarnate Word 



These things therefore, playing their part in this 
dark tragedy, the soldiers did. 

But besides the soldier executioners, the scoffing 
priests, and the taunting multitude, there were 
standing by the cross of Jesus. 

The Filial Legacy. -, . , 1 . r TT * 

immediately m its front, His 
mother, and His aunt, His mother' s sister, Mary y 
the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, drawn 
hither by their undying affection and the holy 
courage of love. 

When Jesus therefore saw His mother, over- 
whelmed as she was by her unspeakable sorrow, 
and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, de- 
spite His own physical suffering and mental agony, 
fulfilling the last act of filial piety, addressing her 
by the common title of respect rather than that of 
parentage, and accompanying His words with the 
movement of His sacred head, as He could make 
no gesture with His pierced hands, giving at once 
a son to His mother and a mother to His friend, 
He saith unto His mother : "Woman, behold, thy 
son ! " and to the disciple, " Behold, thy mother / " 

At this exhibition of filial tenderness and affec- 
tion on the part of Jesus, which completely broke 
His mother's heart, unable longer to endure the 
sight, she left the sorrowful spot, and from that hour, 



The Victorious Word 



247 



accepting the legacy his beloved Master had left 
him, the disciple took her unto his own home, 
where, with Salome and himself, first in Jerusalem 
and then in Galilee, she spent the remaining part 
of her life. 

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things per- 
taining to His Divine commission are now 



scripture found in the 69th Psalm, which specified 
extreme bodily exhaustion as part of the agony 
of the servant of God, might be accomplished, 
saith, "I thirst!" 

Now there was set there a vessel full of vinegar, 
not of a stupefying character, but a drink specially 
prepared for the soldiers themselves : so, as a 
simple act of humanity, to their credit be it said, 
they put a sponge full of the vinegar upon hyssop, 
and brought it by means of a reed or rod to His 
mouth. 

When Jesus therefore received the vinegar, con- 
scious that all was now done, giving expression to 
His feeling of victory in a single triumphant Greek 
word, He saith : "It is finished ! " 

And having uttered this triumphant exclamation, 



The Death of 



Jesus. 



finished, that the prophetic repre- 
sentation of the sufferings of 
Messiah as portrayed in the 



248 The Incarnate Word 



as the natural act of one dying, He bowed His 
head, and, in voluntary surrender of His life, 

gave up His spirit ! 

The Romans commonly left the bodies of the 
condemned on the cross to become the prey of 
vultures and wild beasts. The 

Jesxis Officially A T . , , . , 

Mosaic law, however, required 

lievliired Dead,. 

that the bodies of executed 
criminals should be put out of the way before sun- 
set, that the Holy Land might not, on the follow- 
ing day, be polluted by the curse attached to the 
lifeless body, a monument of divine condemnation. 
The Jews therefore, ever scrupulous about cere- 
monial requirements, while all too neglectful of 
moral obligations, because it was the Preparation 
for the Passover-Sabbath, that the bodies should 
not remain 011 the cross upon the Sabbath— for the 
day of that Sabbath was a high day — asked Pilate 
that, in order to hasten their death, their legs 
might be broken, and that they might be taken 
away ! 

The necessary permission having been obtained 
from the now complaisant procurator, the soldiers 
therefore came, and broke the legs of the first, 
and of the other zvhich was crucified with Him ; 
but when they came to Jesus, and saw to their 



More Prophecies Fulfilled 24c) 



surprise that He was dead already, they broke 
not His legs : hoivbeit one of. the soldiers, not in 
simple wantonness, but to learn the certainty of His 
death, with a spear pierced His side, directing his 
thrust at the heart, the very seat of vitality, and 
straightway there came out the unprecedented and 
inexplicable phenomenon of blood and water ! 

And he that hath seen hath borne witness, and 
his witness is true : and he knoweth that he saith 
true, that ye may also believe. For these things 
came to pass, that the scripture at Exodus xii. 46 
might be fulfilled, which saith respecting the 
typical lamb, "A bone of Him shall not be 
broken;" and again another scripture, Zechariah 
xii. 10, which saith, " They shall look on Fiim 
whom they have pierced 1 ' ' 

And after these things Joseph of Arimathcea, a 
rich man, an honorable counsellor, a member of 
the Sanhedrim, being a disciple 

Entombment of r t ? . t -t r 

of Jesus, but secretly for fear 

Jesus 

of the Jews, now casting all tear 
to the winds, openly confessing himself a friend of 
the Crucified, with a courage that cannot be too 
highly commended, asked of Pilate that he might 
take away the body of Jesus. 

And having been officially notified that Jesus 



250 



The Incarnate Word 



was actually dead, there being no opposition on the 
part of anybody to what Joseph proposed, Pilate 
gave him leave. 

He came therefore, and removing it from the 
cross, took away His body in order that he might 
give it honorable sepulture. 

And, moved at once by love and indignation, 
the circumstances serving to bring out his true 
character, there came also Nicodemus, who also was 
a member of the Sanhedrim — he who at the first 
came to Him by night, but, who now, like Joseph, 
openly acknowledged himself a friend of the cruci- 
fied Jesus — bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, 
about a hundred pound weight ; showing at once 
the wealth, liberality and wise forethought of the 
man, as a dead body so torn and lacerated as that 
of Jesus required an unusually large quantity of 
antiseptics or preservatives, to check the tendency 
to corruption which such a climate would cause, 
even then in the spring season. 

So, uniting in the pious service, they took the body 
of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the 
spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. 

Now in the place where He was crucified 
there was a garden ; and in the garden a new 
tomb wherein was never man yet laid. There then 
because of the Jews' Preparation for the Sabbath, 



The Burial of Jesus 



which rendered its removal to a greater distance 
impossible within the time remaining before the 
Sabbath began— -for the- to nib was nigh at hand — 
they laid the body of Jesus / 



PART FOURTH 



Resurrection and Subsequent Appear- 
ances of Jesus 

Now when the Sabbath was passed, on the first 
day of the week, that is, on the third day after the 
death and burial of our Lord, 

The Empty Tomh. . , , c , 

with a courage born of love, 
cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet 
dark, unto the tomb for the purpose of completing 
the embalmment of His body which the approach of 
the Sabbath on the evening of His crucifixion had 
interrupted, and seeth the stone which Joseph and 
Nicodemus had rolled to the door of the tomb for 
the better protection of its sacred deposit, taken 
away from the tomb ! 

Surprised at the unexpected discovery, conclud- 
ing that the tomb had been rifled, in eager haste to 
communicate the intelligence, she runneth there- 
fore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other 
disciple, whom Jesus loved, and, with bated breath 
252 



Apostolic Rivalry 



253 



and mournful accents, making known to them the 
cause of her grief and of her appearance at so un- 
usual an hour, saith unto them : " They, we do 
not know who, but probably His enemies, have 
taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know 
not where they have laid Him ! ' ' 

Much disturbed by the startling announcement 
Mary had made, resolving to investigate the matter 
for themselves and see whether the Magdalene was 
right in her conclusions touching the disposition of 
the body, Peter therefore immediately went forth 
out of the city, and the other disciple, a?id, leaving 
Mary behind to follow after, they went toward the 
tomb. And in their loving anxiety and eager ear- 
nestness they ran both together : and the other 
disciple, younger and more agile, outran Peter, 
and came first to the tomb ; and stooping and look- 
ing in, he seeth the linen cloths lying in which it 
had been wrapped — clear proof that the body was 
gone — yet, in his natural timidity, shrinking from 
invading the abode of the dead, entered he 
not in ! 

Simon Peter therefore also in a little time 
cometh, following him, and, determined to make a 
thorough examination, without hesitation or delay, 
entered into the tomb : and, to his amazement, he 
beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, 



254 The Incarnate Word 



that was upon His head, not lying with the linen 
cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself — clear 
proof that the body had not been stolen ! 

Then, being informed by Peter as to the con- 
dition of things, at his earnest solicitation, entered 
in therefore the other disciple also, which came first 
to the tomb, and he saw, and, satisfied from the 
evidence that the body of Jesus had not been 
stolen, and that He Himself had so disposed His 
grave wrappings, and that He therefore must be 
alive, believed in the resurrection, in the first 
place, and then, through this, that Jesus was indeed 
the Messiah and the Son of God ! 

For as yet, failing to grasp the meaning of the 
prophecies announcing the death and resurrection 
of the Messiah, they knew not the scripture, nor 
even His own repeated saying, that He must rise 
again from the dead ! 

So the disciples, partly through fear of the Jews, 
and partly because it seemed to them useless to 
remain longer beside an empty sepulchre, went 
away again unto their own home or hiding-place ; 
the disciple who first reached the tomb convinced, 
believing that Jesus was risen from the dead ; 
Peter uncertain, wondering, and amazed : while 
Mary was unable, as yet, to realize the glorious fact 
at all ! 



Needless Sorrozc 



But Mary, who had meanwhile returned to the 
sacred spot, in the hope that something might turn 
up to explain what had become 

Ihe Risen One ^ ^ ^ 0( Jy Q f ^ er I^ or( j ? with the 
Appears to . 

persistency of love, was standing 

Jttary Magdalene. 1 J 

without at the tomb weeping : so, 
as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb, 
where it seemed to her the precious object of her 
search ought to be : and, to her great surprise and 
amazement, instead of seeing the dead body of 
Jesus, she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, 
one at the head, and one at the feet, 7vhere the 
body of Jesus had lain ! 

And, observing the evidence of her sorrow on 
her face, intimating that her grief was unwarranted 
under the circumstances, their tone and look giv- 
ing emphasis to their words, they say unto her : 
' ' Woman, why weepest thou ? ' ' 

Answering promptly, in the despondency of 
sorrowing love, repeating substantially the an- 
nouncement she had made to the disciples, she 
saith unto them : " Because they have taken away 
my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
Him /" 

When she had thus said, instinctively conscious 
of another presence behind her, and perceiving 
from looks and actions of the angels that some one 



256 



The Incarnate Word 



was approaching, she turned herself back from the 
direction of the tomb and beholdeth Jesus standing, 
and, owing to her own unbelief and His changed 
appearance, failing to recognize Him, knew not 
that it was Jesus ! 

Now, as always, suiting His action to the needs 
of the soul that suffereth and loveth, perceiving 
that she did not recognize Him, and preserving 
His incognito, as one entirely ignorant of the cause 
of her grief and of her singular conduct, His man- 
ner, however, indicating that He knew more than 
His questions implied, and that, stranger though 
He seemed, He might be able to direct her to the 
object of her search, and so to stanch her flowing 
tears Jesus saith unto her : " Woman, why weep- 
est thou ? whom seekest thou ? ' ' 

Still thinking of her Master as one dead, her 
one absorbing thought being how she could recover 
His corpse and do it honor, impatient of what 
seemed to her but a mockery of her sorrow, pre- 
suming that, from what appeared to her to be His 
occupation, He knew very well the cause of her 
tears and the object of her search, in the language 
of passionate love and grief, she, supposing Him 
to be the gardener, saith unto Him : i i Sir, if thou 
hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid 
Him, 'and I will take Him away / 1 ' 



The Magic Word 



Having thus spoken, Mary resumed her former 
position, stooping down and looking into the empty 
tomb, the place where they had laid Him possess- 
ing a strange fascination for her sorrowing soul. 
The purpose of His incognito, however, having 
been accomplished, and the moment for disclosing 
His identity having come, throwing off all disguise, 
mentioning only her name, speaking but the one 
word, the tone in which He utters it, however, 
expressing all that which she is for Him, all that 
which He is for her, the powerful sunshine of His 
love being focused into the white beam of seven- 
fold light, addressing her in that familiar manner 
He had often done before, Jesus saith unto her : 
" Mary /" 

Startled at the sound of this well-known voice, 
no longer in doubt as to the fact that He whom 
she sought was not dead but alive, that single word 
" Mary " having touched, as it were, a spring and 
opened her eyes in a moment, trembling and as- 
tonished, she turneth herself toward Him once 
more, but this time with a clear answer of reverent 
recognition, and, in the excitement of the mo- 
ment, throwing herself at His feet, seeking to clasp 
them, in her turn concentrating her whole being in 
a single word, giving expression to her emotions in 
this one passionate exclamation, this responsive 



$5$ The Incarnate Word 



love-flash, saith unto Him in Hebrew: " Rab^ 
boni ! " which is to say, " Master ! " 

Recognizing the strength and failure of Mary's 
love, which she thus expressed in word and act, 
with the view of disciplining and raising it, repress- 
ing her too excessive demonstrations of joy at so 
unexpectedly seeing Him alive, but bidding her 
rise and be useful, giving her a commission to His 
scattered disciples, Jesus saith to her: "Touch 
Me not : for I am not yet ascended unto the 
Father : but go unto My brethren and say to them, 
i I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and 
My God and your God ' / " 

Meekly accepting the reproof of her over-for- 
ward zeal to touch Him, with a prompt obedience 
worthy of all commendation, awe-struck, hasten- 
ing to proclaim the good news, Mary Magdalene 
cometh and, in breathless excitement, telleth the 
astonished disciples, saying: "I have seen the 
Lord ! /" and then related how that He had said 
these things unto her. 

When therefore it 7vas evening, on that mem- 
orable day, the first day of the week. — the birth- 
day of the Christian life, and 

Appears to the • , • i r tt 

which, as a memorial of His res- 

Veil, 

urrection from the dead, has ever 



The Risen One Identified 259 

since been called the Lord's Day or the Christian 
Sabbath — and when the doors were shut where the 
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, having al- 
ready appeared to two of their number on their 
way to Emmaus, and to Peter, no longer bound by 
the conditions of material existence Jesus came 
and stood in the midst, and, using the ordinary 
Jewish salutation, showing them thereby that His 
feelings toward them had undergone no change 
by reason of their faint-heartedness and desertion 
during the terrible ordeal through which He had 
passed ; but, on the contrary, in His boundless 
compassion, reassuring and cheering them, gra- 
ciously, though with infinite majesty, saith icnto 
them : ' i Peace be unto you / ' ' 

And when He had said this, giving them pal- 
pable and indisputable evidence of His identity, 
that He had really risen from the dead and stood 
before them with a material, though spiritualized, 
body, He showed unto the7n His hands and His 
side / in the former of which were the scars of the 
wounds made by the nails with which He had been 
fastened to the cross, and in the latter, that made 
by the spear in the hands of the soldier who made 
the thrust to know that He was certainly dead. 

The disciples therefore ivere glad when, all 
doubts of His resurrection being thus removed! 



i6o 



The Incarnate Word 



they saw the Lord, and knew to a certainty that the 
One who now stood before them was indeed He ! 

Lest by reason of His victory over the grave and 
His reappearance among them the disciples should 
suppose that the day of ease and reward had come, 
giving them to understand that their real work was 
now only about to begin, that He Himself was 
about to leave the world and that He meant them 
to take His place, and that one purpose for which 
He appeared among them was to give them their 
commission, Jesus therefore said to them again : 
i ' Peace be unto you / as the Father hath sent Me, 
even so send I you / ' ' 

And when He had said this, thus conferring on 
them the apostolic office, proceeding to communi- 
cate to them the needed gift for the proper dis- 
charge of the functions of that office, He breathed 
on them, and saith unto them: " Receive ye the 
Holy Spirit : whosesoever sins ye forgive, as My rep- 
resentatives, they are forgiven unto them : whose- 
soever sins ye retain, they are retained / ' ' 

But Thomas one of the Twelve, called Didymus, 
the twin, was not with them when Jesus came, re- 
fusing to give any credence 



Doubting Tit ottiffs 



whatever to the story of the 
resurrection. The other disci- 



Convinced. 



Doubt's Demands 



pies therefore with the view of convincing him of 
the fact, going to him in a body, full of joy and 
delight at what they had seen and heard, in one 
glad acclaim, speaking in unison, and making this 
joyful announcement, said unto him: " We have 
seen the Lord ! ' ' 

But, incredulous and pessimistic to the very last, 
unwilling even to trust the senses and testimony of 
his ten brethren, and firmly avowing that nothing 
but ocular demonstration could convince him of 
the reality of a fact so amazing, he said unto them : 
" Except I shall see in His hands the print of the 
nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, 
and put my hand into His side, I will not be- 
lieve ! ' ' 

And after eight days again the ten disciples were 
within, and this time Thomas with them. And 
while they were engaged in conversation concern- 
ing the wonderful things that had taken place, lo, 
Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, as on the 
previous occasion, and for the same reason, and 
stood in the midst, and accosting them all with the 
same gracious salutation as before, said: "Peace 
be unto you ! ' ' 

Then, as though it were for his special benefit 
that He appeared among them at that time, and, 
as if to make him blush at the grossness of the 



262 The Incarnate Word 



conditions he had prescribed for believing in His 
resurrection, reproducing almost literally the rash 
words of the doubting disciple, saith He unto 
Thomas : < ' Reach hither thy finger, and see My 
hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into 
My side : and be not, as thou art in danger of be- 
coming, a confirmed sceptic, faith less, but, as are 
these thy brethren, believing /" 

Convinced now by what he heard and saw, the 
last shadow of doubt as to the reality of His resur- 
rection and consequently His Messiahship being 
removed from his mind, ill the short impassioned 
exclamation of a man taken by surprise, Thomas 
answered and said unto Him : " My Lord and my 
God!" 

Gratified at this mark of progress on the part of 
His hitherto incredulous disciple, but pointing out 
how much happier is the triumph of those who 
base their faith on adequate testimony, than of 
such as Thomas who rely w T holly on the evidence 
of the senses, reserving the last and greatest Beati- 
tude as the peculiar inheritance of the later church, 
Jesus saith unto him: u Because thou hast seen 
Me, thou hast believed in the divinity of My Per- 
son and Mission ; it is well ; happy art thou ; but 
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have 
believed I " 



Signs and their Significance 



263 



Many other miracles as signs therefore did Jesus 
in the presence of the disciples, which are not writ- 
ten in this book : but these, se- 

The Author's , , , c - 

lected from the great mass, are 

Aim. . 

written that ye may believe on 
the score of the testimony thus presented, that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that be- 
lieving ye may have life in His name ! 



EPILOGUE 



After these things some time between the eighth 
and fortieth day after His resurrection Jesus mani- 
fested Himself again, not to the 

.Tesns Appeals w | 1Q | e e } even ^ but to Seven of the 
to the Seven. . 

disciples, this time at the sea of 
Tiberias, which is the sea of Galilee, already hal- 
lowed by the associations of other years ; and He 
manifested Himself on this wise : 

There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas 
called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Gali- 
lee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His 
disciples, waiting for some sign from the Master as 
to what He would have them do. Meanwhile, 
wearied by a period of idleness and inactivity to 
which they were unaccustomed, and resolved to 
spend the time as profitably as possible, Simon 
Peter s ait h unto them : " I go a fishing ! " 

Being of the same mind as Peter as to.the pro- 
priety of Avhat he proposed, they say unto him : 
66 We also come zuith thee ! " 

Accordingly they went forth, and entered into 
264 



Fruitless Toil 



265 



the boat which they and the Master had been ac- 
customed to use : and, though addressing them- 
selves to their work with all the diligence of former 
days, their toil proved fruitless, for that night they 
caught nothing ! 

But when the day was now breaking, in the 
grey dawn of the morning, Jesus stood on the 
beach : howbeit, owing to the fact that in the dim- 
ness of the early twilight objects on the shore could 
not be distinctly seen, and to the further fact that 
they had no idea that the Master would then ap- 
pear to them, the disciples knew not that it was 
Jesus ! 

By way of preparing them for the fuller revela- 
tion of Himself, acting the part of a stranger who 
wished to buy such fish as they might have caught, 
but couching His question in such terms as would 
lead them, on reflection, to conclude that He knew 
quite well that their toil had been fruitless, hailing 
them, and in a loud voice calling to them, and ad- 
dressing them in the familiar and friendly way of 
the time, Jesus saith unto them: "Children, have 
ye aught to eat ? ' ' 

Replying to His question in the brief and mon- 
osyllabic style rendered necessary when speaking 
over^ a hundred yards of water, calling to Him, in 
despondent tone they answered Him : "No 1 " 



266 



The Incarnate Word 



And, going a step further in revealing Himself 
to the discouraged disciples, giving them such ad- 
vice and such assurance of success as would lead 
them to conclude, at least, that it was no common 
stranger who thus addressed them, calling, He 
said ujtto them : "Cast the net on the right side of 
the boat, and ye shall find / ' ' 

Impressed with an occurrence so unusual, in the 
hope that by acting on the advice of the mysterious 
stranger they would prove successful, letting down 
the net they had already hauled up and stowed 
away in preparation for their return to shore, they 
cast therefore, and now, to their amazement, they 
were not able to draw it for the multitude of 
fishes ! 

With characteristic quickness and sensitiveness, 
recalling a similar incident in the early days of 
their association with Jesus, and concluding from 
this logic of love that the mysterious stranger 
must be his beloved Master, so entirely like Him 
was the whole proceeding, that disciple therefore 
whom Jesus loved saith zmto Peter, who was the 
leading man in the boat : 11 It is the lord / " 

So when Simon Peter heard that it was the 
lord, with that impulsiveness and impetuosity so 
eminently characteristic of the man, uncaring of 
consequences, acting on the spur of the moment^ 



Provision for the Workers 

with a hastiness of behavior which w r e cannot ap- 
prove, while we admire his love and respect his 
zeal, with instinctive reverence for the Master, he 
girt his coat about him — -for he was naked — and 
cast himself into the sea, and, impatient of the slow 
progress of the boat, swimming and wading, has- 
tened to the shore where Jesus was ! 

But, in strong contrast with Peter's action, more 
practical while not less zealous and loving than 
their impulsive brother, with due care for material 
things, the other disciples came in the little boat 
or skiff belonging to the large fishing vessel, 
which they had anchored in the deep w r ater — 
for they were not far from the land, but about 
two hundred cubits off — dragging the net full of 
fishes / 

So when they got out upon the land, to their 
great surprise, they see a fire of coals there, and fish 
laid thereon, and bread 7 the evidence of the Lord's 
thoughtfulness and care for the bodily wants of His 
wearied disciples. This preparation on the part of 
the Lord, however, must be made complete by the 
product of their own toil in fishing. Jesus there- 
fore saith unto them : 1 'Bring of the fish which ye 
have no w taken / ' ' 

Acting promptly, at His command, as the leader 
in the expedition, Simon Peter therefore, going 




2b8 The Incarnate Word 



aboard the little boat to which it was attached, 
went up, and with the aid of his companions who 
acted under his direction, drew the net to land, full 
of great fishes, a hundred and fifty and three ! 
and, miracle upon miracle, for all there were so 
7nany, the net was not rent I 

Now when this was done and the meal fully pre- 
pared, acting the part of host on the occasion, with 
the gracious familiarity of His pre-mortem days, 
evincing the fact that He is the same thoughtful 
and compassionate Friend He ever was, Jesus saith 
unto them : i ' Come and break your fast / ' ' 

And, awed and solemnized in His presence, a 
deep sense of His mysterious nature in conse- 
quence of His resurrection, filling their minds with 
an indefinable sensation of mingled embarrassment, 
reverence and fear, none of the disciples durst in- 
quire of Him ; " Who art Thou?" knoiving 
that it was the Lord. 

Perceiving the restraint under which the seven 
astonished disciples labored, by way of putting 
them at ease with Him, and of giving them one 
more plain proof that He had risen from the dead, 
doing as He had oftentimes done before, Jesus 
cometh, and taketh the bread, and giveth them, and 
the fish likennse ! 

This is now the third time that Jesus was mani- 



Peter s Rehabilitation 269 



fested to the disciples in a group, after that He 
was risen from the dead. 

So when they had broken their fast, taking ad- 
vantage of the occasion for the public restoration 
and recommissioning of the fallen 
*>etev Jiestovea a p 0S tle, with reference to the 
" U€l loud protestations of loyalty and 

love he had made on the evening 
before His crucifixion, Jesus saith to Simon Peter : 
" Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than 
these thy fellow-disciples? " 

Laying no claim to any degree of loyalty or 
love over his brethren, but affirming his own 
sincere attachment to the person of the Master, 
and, appealing to His own knowledge for the truth 
of his assertion, in all humility he saith unto Him : 
* ' Yea, Lord, Thou know est that I love Thee / ' ' 

Recognizing the genuineness of Peter's profes- 
sion, restoring him to the rank and honor from 
which he had fallen, conferring on him both the 
liberty and authority to teach, He saith unto him : 
" Feed My lambs /" 

By and by He saith to him again the second 
time : " Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me ? " 

Repeating with emphasis his previous declara- 
tion of affection for, and attachment to, Jesus' 



The Incarnate Word 



person, he saith unto Him : " Yea, Lord, Thou 
knowest that, despite appearances hitherto to the 
contrary, I love Thee J "' 

In view of this emphatic protestation of affec- 
tion and loyal love, widening the scope of his 
commission, He saith unto him: "Tend My 
sheep /" 

In allusion to his threefold denial, and with the 
purpose of deepening his humility, He saith unto 
him the third time : "Simon, son of John, loves t 
thou Me?" 

Peter was grieved because He said unto him 
the third time, " Loves t thou Me?" And, con- 
scious of his absolute sincerity, repeating his 
previous asseverations in the most solemn and 
emphatic manner, so as to remove the last linger- 
ing shadow of doubt from the mind of the Master, 
appealing to His own consciousness for the truth of 
what he affirmed, he said unto Him: "Lord, 
Thou knowest all things : Thou knotvest that L 
love Thee I ' ' 

In view of this threefold protestation of love for 
His person, completing his commission, and as- 
suring him in the most solemn manner that his 
love would one day be put to the most severe test, 
alluding to Peter's martyrdom for His sake, Jesus 
saith unto him : ' ' Feed My sheep / 



The Christian's Life Motto 271 



"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast 
young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither 
thou wouldest : but when thou shall be old, thou 
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird 
thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not ! ' 1 

Now this He spake, signifying by what manner 
of death he should glorify God. And when He 
had said this, as a kind of watchword for Peter's 
course in life from that day forward, He saith unto 
him : "Follow Me /" 



Having thus spoken Jesus moved away from the 
spot where these things took place, accompanied 
by Peter, the others following at 
Religions some distance behind. And la- 

Su8yho€lies. . 

boring under the emotion awak- 
ened by the announcement of his own tragic end, 
bethinking himself of his associates, Peter, turning 
about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved follow- 
ing — the same which also leaned back on His breast 
at the Supper, and said, ' Lord, who is he that be- 
tray eth Thee ? 1 Peter therefore seeing him, ear- 
nestly solicitous about the fate of his more timid 
and sensitive brother, to whom he was most ten- 
derly attached, making an inquiry, which, while 
manifesting his sympathy, at the same time betrayed 
an unseemly curiosity, saith to Jesus ; "Lord, and 



272 The Incarnate Word 



what shall this man do ? If I am to meet a mar- 
tyr's death, how shall Thy favorite disciple, my 
friend and brother John here, glorify God? " 

Perceiving in Peter's question a slight trace of 
the ancient Simon, a disposition to be more con- 
cerned about the fate of others than his own pres- 
ent duty, which called for a sharp reprimand, a 
needed caution, refusing to gratify his curiosity as 
being neither conducive to his comfort nor his profit, 
in a reply in which He intimated that he should 
not be unduly exercised about what did not imme- 
diately concern him, and in which, recalling him to 
himself, He summed up his present duty by repeat- 
ing His previous injunction, Jesus saith unto him : 
" If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee ? Think only of what I command thee, and, 
leaving to God His own secrets, follow thou Me / " 

This misreported saying therefore ivent forth 
among the brethren, that that disciple should not 
die ; yet Jesus said not unto him, that he should 
not die ; but, ' If I will that he tarry till I come, 
what is that to thee ' ' ? 



This is the disciple which beareth witness of 
these things, and wrote these 
things : and we know that this 

Attestation, , 

witness is true, and may there- 



A Marvellous Ministry 273 



fore be implicitly trusted as a reliable record of 
what Jesus said and did. 

And there are also many other things which 
Jesus did, the which if they should be written 
every one, I suppose that, 

Incompleteness , • , i t n .i 

speaking hyperbolically or in the 

of the Record. r 

language of exaggeration, even 
the world itself would not contain the books that 
should be written / 



The Temple Opened 

A GUIDE TO THE BOOK 

Unequaled as a Bible Text-Book 

By WILLIAM HUGH GILL, D.D. 
i2ino. Cloth. 596 pages. New Edi- 
tion. Price reduced from $2.00 to 
$1.25. Sent postpaid by the publishers 
on receipt of the price 



What the Press and the People thmk of 
" The Temple Opened " 

Tust the sort of book needed for the times. * * * 
I can commend it without reserve — Dr. John Hall. 

One of the most useful volumes that have been 
published for many a day. — Dr. Clark, President of 
the U. S. of C. E. 

One of the most comprehensive and helpful of all 
the works published upon the Bible. — Dr. Worden. 

God bless such books. — Dr. Russell Conwell. 

A solid piece of work, sound, scholarly and suited 
to the times. — Dr. Cuyler. 

It meets a want not hitherto supplied. — Dr. Mar- 
quis, of McCormick Theological Seminary. 

A good book. It ought to be translated into all 
the languages of the world. — The Presbyterian. 

It was a happy inspiration which prompted you 
to write your book. — Rev. Dr. Boardman, Baptist. 

I am delighted with it. Send me six copies for 
friends.— Rt. Rev. G. W. Peterkin, D.D., Parkers- 
burg, W. Va. 

Just the book I have been wanting. — Rev. G. TV". 
Lucock. 

It is truly a great book. — Rev. David Street, 
I 07V a. 

Would not part with it for five times its cost. — 
Dr. Probasco, Plainfield, X.J. 



One of the most useful books published. — Our 

Mission. 

A mine of information and usefulness. — Presby- 
terian Quarterly, 

A unique and most valuable book. All that one 
must usually seek in ponderous volumes on Biblical 
introduction is found here in compact form. * * * 
It is a book for Sabbath-school teachers everywhere, 
and may be used with advantage by the maturer 
classes in institutions of learning as a text-book. — 
Presbyterian Quarterly, 

There can be only one judgment in reference to 
this volume on the part of lovers of the Bible. It is 
good, helpful, suggestive, interesting, full of valuable 
information. — Herald and Presbyter, 

If I could not get another, I would not part with 
the volume I now possess at any price. — Rev. J. C. 
Thompson, D.D. 

One of the most indispensable books in my library. 
It is invaluable to the minister, teacher and Bible stu- 
dent generally. Dr. Gill has done a service in the 
preparation of this volume that is simply incalculable. 
As a time-saver and practical helper it is altogether 
unique. — Rev. Alex. Alison, D.D., Bristol, Pa. 

Dr. Gill's book has a great advantage of its own 
in the plan adopted in the arrangement of its mate- 
rial. * * * Its vigorous style, its pungent criti- 
cism, the clearness of its definition as well as the 
amount of curious information it contains, make "The 
Temple Opened " a volume especially valuable for 
all persons charged with the religious instruction of 
the young. — Mail and Express, New York. 

It contains an enormous amount of just that kind 
of information which is often wanted and not easy to 
come by. — Standard of the Cross. 



GEORGE W. JACOBS 6 CO. 

103-105 South Fifteenth St. 
Philadelphia 



ESTHER 



Being the story of the Book of Esther, eluci- 
dated by interpolation for popular use. By 
WILLIAM HUGH GILL, D.D., author of 
" The Temple Opened/' etc. i6mo. Cloth. 
Price 30 cents, net. 



He claims, and justly, that Macbeth is second to this won- 
derful story ot Esther. It is given in a form similar to the 
" ' Temple Shakespeat e," a vest-pocket companion, to be read 
at leisure moments on the cars or in the waiting-room. — The 
Presbyterian Journal. 

He has interpolated enough additions to the Bible narra- 
tive to make it more even in its flow and more comprehensible 
by the ordinary reader. — The Congregationalist . 

Instead of adding his explanations of the Book of Esther 
in the form of notes, Dr. Gill has wrought them into continuous 
sentences with the Text of the English Revised Version. It 
is to be hoped that Dr. Gill will continue to work this vein. — 
The Sunday School Times. 

Many persons, especially the young, will get a better idea 
of this unique portion of Hebrew History from this interesting 
and instructive way of setting it forth by one who is a constant 
student of the Scriptures and of what will throw light upon 
them. — The Presbyte r ia n . 

In a pleasant and interesting manner the entire story of the 
Book of Esther is written with those dates and facts of universal 
history intertwined, which have bearing on this tale. It i s well 
written and should prove a handy companion to those who pre- 
fer the every-day language of life to that written in the Bible. 
Sunday-school teachers also will find much within the compass 
of its pages which will aid the presentation of the facts of 
Esther before their classes. — The American Hebrew. 



Sent postpaid by the publishers on receipt of price 



A Drama 




History 



GEORGE W. JACOBS 6 CO. 

103-105 South Fifteenth St. 
Philadelphia 



FEB 16 1901 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 012 236 



